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Why doesn't WBEB stream?

B

bobdavcav

I'm not sure if I should post this here or in the Philidelphia forum, but I was talking with a friend who lives in that area today and we got on the subject of WBEB. It sounds like they stopped streaming now 5 years ago because in the next 3 years or so, royalty rates were projected to double and streaming wouldn't be a viable source of revenue. The thing is, WBEB is the top rated station in market #8. Does anyone know if rates have increased since 2009? Even then, I'm really not sure I understand as I've seen several stations sign on streams since WBEB has turned theirs off, yet I've only seen a small handful go off the internet. The ones I've seen go off are KCAQ, WAOL, WBEB, and I believe it's WWXX or something, I haven't actually listened to the fourth station. Meanwhile, I've seen the following stations come on. KKNU, KLYK, KCGB, KOOS, KTEE, and WJDQ. Granted, all but 2 of those are owned by the same company, but that's still a lot more stations turning streams on than turning them off. My local Hot AC KPLZ also was off for a few months back in 2010, but is now back on. Can anyone think of a logical reason why WBEB refuses to stream?
 
Have they gone up as much as projected? KLMY and KMSO are two other stations that seem to have shut off streaming, although it doesn't make any sense to me why KLMY was shut off since all the other music stations in that cluster stream. Could this also be the reason why said station owner does not have song and artist info in their streams anymore? I've only looked at KFAT, but this also seems to be an issue with Saga as well. I thought they were going to restrict station streams to within the station's market, but I haven't seen that happen yet.
 
Music streaming royalty rates are confiscatory. If they can get to number one in market 8 without paying those rates, good for them.

My company only streams sports and local talk shows. Our music stations don't stream unless a sports event is on. The talk station on streams for my show. The number of people who even listen to those streams is almost nil.

We have 5 stations in this market, and we're 1-5 every book. No need to pay those rates for something that no one is going to use and wouldn't increase the bottom line anyway.
 
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That's interesting, Small Market Guy. I am really interested in what David Eduardo has to say on this issue as it seems as if he always says that the internet is the future of radio. What's also interesting is that from what I've heard, WBEB's stream actually showed up in the ratings when it was on, so it certainly had a number of listeners, but not nearly as many as the air signal. Not to derail my own topic, but on a somewhat related issue, I don't quite understand why some streams show up separately. I understand for most commercial stations that play different spots on the stream than they do over the air, but I don't understand it for either non-com stations or those that play the air spots on the internet. One example in my market is KUOW. The air signal, crappy as it is in many areas, still ranges from the mid-4 to low 5 share range, usually placing it in the top 5. I haven't seen this in a while, but why did the stream also show up at the bottom if KUOW is an NPR station?
 
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