Bye-bye Mark Simone

boombox4 said:

This is when online radio was once advertised as being limitless. Like much of the internet was.

Now we see the limits.

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The real scary part is when you see companies like AT&T buying up content companies like Time Warner and getting into the content and distribution business. They aren't buying up all these assets because they want to "play ball" and share their content with everyone. They are doing this to compete with Comcast Universal, Disney ABC, Fox, and all the other powerhouses. Apple doesn't "play ball" with anyone. We just had the Chairman of the FCC plead with Apple to simply activate the FM chip in their phones. He isn't asking them to spend money. Just play ball. They said no. That's the digital world now. Everyone is building their own sandbox.

Wadio is looking at this from the consumer perspective. He wants online radio to be like on-air. That's not going to happen. On-air is regulated to be the way it is. The regulation was based on the scarcity of spectrum. No scarcity in the digital world. It's the infinite dial. Online is the wild, wild west, and there are no barriers to anyone. So why should a content creator give his work away to someone who just wants a cut? It makes no sense.

You can learn a lot about a host or a show by going to the bottom of their website, and see who owns the copyright. If it's iHeart, they control the content. But if it's the host, it may be completely different, depending on the terms of the contract that host has with the company.

@TheBigA: First, thanks for a very reasoned and rational explanation of your point of view.

Here are a couple of things I think you may be missing.

... it's not the way the overall entertainment business is moving.

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True, but not necessarily the way it must move - not every business direction is correct, particulary in the "wild west" phase.

Some record labels are refusing to allow their music on certain streaming platforms, ...

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The recording industry fought back against digital for years and they still may not have it right. Napster offered to "go legal" and provide them an online distribution platform for music. Some feel they would be in far better shape now if they'd embraced it.

... If you love a certain kind of content, you'll do whatever it takes to get it. That's how Howard Stern got rich. ... Bill O'Reilly doesn't have a TV show on Fox anymore, but his fans are paying to hear him online.

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That's in today's world where these guys built an audience through traditional broadcasting and are still profiting from it. In tomorrow's narrowcasting world that won't be so easy.

And yes, I'm looking at this from a consumer perspective. In the long view it's up to businesses to figure out how to best serve customers and make money by doing so. If they overlook the former, all the correct metrics won't help. Wells Fargo is an extreme example!

Get the picture?

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Sure, but there's more than one picture - there's a gallery out there. It's the wild, wild west, remember?

wadio said:

Sure, but there's more than one picture - there's a gallery out there. It's the wild, wild west, remember?

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However, in this particular case, if you want to stream Mark Simone, you have to use one of the three choices available. Otherwise, bye-bye.

Isn't that what I said in the OP?

wadio said:

As others have mentioned, the iHeart Android app is a mess. It requires log-in and acceptance of tracking, and it doesn't completely exit - it will sometimes start playing for no reason - that's wonderful in a meeting!

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Many automobile app suites include iHeartRadio for Auto. Has anyone here used the foregoing app?

RE: Howard Stern: One reason Stern is a star, and successful on satellite and online, is because he was available for free on OTA radio for 20 years or so. He just carried his success over to non-traditional media. I wonder if this trend towards online narrowcasting is slowly killing the chances of radio personalities being household names, with the incomes to match.

boombox4 said:

I wonder if this trend towards online narrowcasting is slowly killing the chances of radio personalities being household names, with the incomes to match.

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I don't know about incomes, because a big chunk of Stern's money is from stock. Not many personalities are willing to bet on their company's stock.

But I think there will be room for both kinds of personalities: Those who seek a small dedicated fan base, and those who seek the mass audience. Anyone who is a personality needs to think of his career as though he was a recording artist. Its a similar thing. You can make a good living either way if you have talent. The difference is what kind of career you want. Not everyone wants to be Michael Jackson or Casey Kasem.

I'm into my second week of listening to Chris Plante on WMAL. He's great! Smart, quick, sarcastic and funny as hell. All the things Rush Limbaugh used to be in his early years.

So I guess I should thank iHeart for sending me away to competitive programming that's actually better!

wadio said:

So I guess I should thank iHeart for sending me away to competitive programming that's actually better!

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It really doesn't matter to them. And I'm betting the access is temporary. Cumulus recently hired a new head of digital from iHeart.

wadio said:

I'm into my second week of listening to Chris Plante on WMAL. He's great! Smart, quick, sarcastic and funny as hell. All the things Rush Limbaugh used to be in his early years.

So I guess I should thank iHeart for sending me away to competitive programming that's actually better!

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You're right about Plante....he is quick witted and funny as hell. He's coined a few phrases that have "gone viral" like...

"If it weren't for double standards, liberals would have no standards art all."

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I know someone who traveled on that WMAL annual cruise (last year to St. Petersburg, Russia) and they had a blast. Larry O'Connor is at times a bit too measured in his discussions, but he tries to play to both the Conservative and moderate audiences.

Also, re: Mark Simone and Joan Hamburg....

I miss the old WABC from 5 or 6 years back when on Saturdays, Simone would play 3 hours of music from the 50s and 60s. He'd have an interactive simulcast on WABC's MP3 stream and a chat to boot during the show. Those days are gone. WABC was taken over by florid liberals and WOR by florid conservatives...they swapped Limbaugh and Hannity to WOR and subsequently dumped Joan Hamburg, a national treasure...or at least a local treasure for listeners in the NY Metro area for many decades. She was fired so abruptly that they wouldn't even give her a show to say goodbye to her listeners. Now she's on WABC.

While my politics differ from WABC's currently, I must admit that they are broadcasting in a very respectable fashion. They are on iHeart and Tune-IN, but they also have an MP3 stream preceded by a short ad for those listeners with Wi-Fi radios who are not computer savvy and may have a flip phone....like the elderly. It's too bad other stations don't model themselves after WABC. If iHeart stations provided a dedicated, static URL MP3 or AAC stream, people would still use their app in most cases. But most stations don't give a hoot about disenfranchising listeners with Wi-Fi radios.