I take back everything I ever said about Om Malik (just kidding, Om :D): his latest piece for Business 2.0 on online radio, more specifically how it’s dead in the water, is wide of the mark in my estimation.
I agree with a lot of Om’s assertions about the viability of streaming radio over wired networks. Even looking at the lowest common denominator, there are too many free sources of music (even just considering streaming sources) for a me-too paid offering to compete.
Mobile is a bit of a different case, though. There’s exclusive content that’s got added value when it’s mobile, Major League Baseball being the easiest example. Freeing time-sensitive content, like sports or perhaps news, from being tied to a physically connected location, is where mobile streaming makes sense.
I also think Om discounts the fact that people seem to like to listen to radio, and the tastemaker factor. The radio market is still huge, even with the impact of streaming services, iPods and file-sharing. The tastemaker factor plays into this: people want to know what’s cool and what’s new. He cites recommendation services, but I think they’re still a ways away from replacing influential DJs (the good ones, anyway). Webcasting has expanded the sphere of influence of some great stations like KCRW from Santa Monica, KEXP out of Seattle and my personal favorite, WOXY from Cincinnati. What used to be regional stations, at best, find themselves playing to national and global audiences.
The Internet freed these stations from their initial geographic constraints by sending their signal out to anybody’s PC, anywhere. It’s a logical extension that this geographic restraint be broken too, and let users listen to these stations anywhere — via their mobile phone. (As an aside, WOXY.com has added aacPlus streams that sound amazing, even at 24kbps — now all I need is a Series 60 client with which to play them). Satellite radio in the US is moving to integrate its hardware into mobile handsets, with a view to adding more subscriptions.
But subscriptions aren’t the only business model out there for streaming radio, and certainly aren’t the best fit for mobile, given the cost of mobile data. The three stations I mention above all stream free; KEXP and KCRW are public stations that try to convert online listeners to donate and become “members”, while WOXY is running ads — a tried and trusted method, provided a station can gather enough listeners.
I bet Om thought it was cool the first time he could listen to live cricket commentary over the Net. I’d also bet he’ll think it’s cool when he’ll be able to listen to it on his mobile phone.
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