[BC] Uselessness of HD

[Rob Landry]

On Tue, 26 Jun 2012, Alex Hartman wrote:

> Streaming is, and can be very lucrative. I know several "internet
> only" stations making about $40k/mo revenue in the UK.

Gross or net?

One of my clients pays $18,000/month for just for streaming bandwidth.

> The one thing terrestrial broadcasters have over the internet still
> (and probably always will) is the localism factor. This is also the
> problem with those "multi-state" AM signals. They only sell to the
> small town they're in, not the big city 40 miles out. Thus why they
> don't generate much revenue. With the internet however, you can have
> advertisers from all over the world on your station. Remember, your
> audience potential is *global*, not just multi-state. :)

The global reach of the Internet is not necessarily an advantage. Because 
the Internet "dial" is infinitely wide, any single Internet stream is a 
billboard in the ocean; no one will find it unless they go looking for it. 
It may have a global reach, but it will always have a tiny audience share. 
It's hard to imagine many advertisers taking an interest in such an 
audience.

Now, if you're Live365, and can aggregate 40,000 streams, you may be able 
to overcome this problem somewhat, but only by providing lots of cheap, 
low quality services that may not deliver as traditional radio does.

I remain skeptical that Internet streams will ever be effective 
competition for over-the-air radio broadcasting. I'm less skeptical about 
services like Pandora, though.

Rob