PocketPC: Windows Mobile 5 & Media Player 10

[Handsurgeon]

Nicole,

I'm the hand surgeon in Omaha, Ne who listens to your station while doing surgery. I will sign up for the fee-based service to get rid of the commercials. While they are interesting, I don't need an accountant, credit card debt assistance or funeral home services in Connecticut. I assume the fee you charge will be enough to offset the loss of commercial revenue. I'm not sure how much your Conn. advertisers value listeners in other parts of the world.

For your tech. people or other listeners more technically skilled than I, does anyone have suggestions for Pocket PC listening? I have an old PPC6700 PocketPC running Windows Mobile 5 (5.1.195, Build # 14928.2.2.0) with Windows Media Player 10 Mobile for PocketPC (V10.2, Build 14928) and use Alltel as a cell phone provider. Good EVDO network with lots of bandwidth, at least for streaming audio.

I can get streaming audio with RescoRadio from KUSC, WCPE, WNYC, WBGH and a few other classical stations, but the program says "can't get a decoder" for the beethoven.com/beethoven_ad.asx url, and I get error messages from Windows Media Player.

David A. Clough, MD
Omaha, Nebraska

[BigJon@Work]

Welceom to the Pit Handsurgeon! We have a lot of fun here.

Sorry, I'm no help on Windows OS problems as I can't stand the thing.

[CLarsen]

Hiya Handsurgeon,

Actually that old stream "beethoven_ad.asx" is completely gone now, they shut down the servers, so that would explain why it wouldn't work on Windows Mobile. The current free stream won't work either, unfortunately, BUT the new subscription stream will work correctly with the Media Player on your handheld. You'll be able to get a link that you can paste in there and it should play without any problems. Thanks and welcome aboard!

[Handsurgeon]

[quote][/quote]

Chris,

Thanks for the info but there isn't yet a link to subscribe.

"Subscribe to the Beethoven Members Club" still shows the placeholder "The Beethoven Commercial Free Members Club will be open on April 14th". I'll check later tonight.

Dr. Clough

[Shapley]

Hello, Handsurgeon. Welcome to the B.com BB!

The B.com Website on my screen no longer has the HD stream link that used to tell us that it would be available after 14 April. Mine has now restored the link to the HD Real Stream under the 'listen' header, although that link does not work.

I plan to subscribe to the commercial-free link once it's available.

V/R
Shapley

[CLarsen]

Hi All,

We're waiting on a new credit card processor right now and once they're finished setting up we can open the registration page. That should be completed today, tomorrow at the latest. Thanks!

[Shapley]

Chris,

Thanks.

I've eaten some sardines, so I'm waiting with baited breath.

V/R
Shapley

[Handsurgeon]

"Chris,

Thanks.

I've eaten some sardines, so I'm waiting with baited breath.

V/R
Shapley"

Shapley,

Another good reason why radio has left and right channels but not an olfactory channel.

Handsurgeon

[Nicole Marie]

Hello!

I see Chris L answered the tech questions so I'll get to the ad revenue ones...

A long, long time ago in a far off land we started broadcasting in CT on AM 1290 and 106.9 FM 2 HD. The clients heard on the stream are clients for the local stations in CT. The broadcast is the same - in CT or on the web - so folks all over the planet hear the ads. The ads sold for the local stations in CT cover our costs in CT but that is a cost that never filters over to the web side. The price we picked for the commercial free stream will cover our bandwidth and operating costs for the service. At this point we are not looking to make a profit, just to cover expenses and see how the response is. We hope you like it!

[Trumpetmaster]

Y.R.H.

Thanks...
As soon as the new stream is available
I'll be signing up!

Regards,
TM

[Shapley]

Hello!

I see Chris L answered the tech questions so I'll get to the ad revenue ones...

A long, long time ago in a far off land we started broadcasting in CT on AM 1290 and 106.9 FM 2 HD. The clients heard on the stream are clients for the local stations in CT. The broadcast is the same - in CT or on the web - so folks all over the planet hear the ads. The ads sold for the local stations in CT cover our costs in CT but that is a cost that never filters over to the web side. The price we picked for the commercial free stream will cover our bandwidth and operating costs for the service. At this point we are not looking to make a profit, just to cover expenses and see how the response is. We hope you like it!

Nicole,

Thanks. We appreciate your efforts to keep costs down, but we're not opposed to your making a profit, either. Try it, you might like it. Who knows, we may even make a Repbulican out of you!

V/R
Shapley

[jamiebk]

Hello!

I see Chris L answered the tech questions so I'll get to the ad revenue ones...

A long, long time ago in a far off land we started broadcasting in CT on AM 1290 and 106.9 FM 2 HD. The clients heard on the stream are clients for the local stations in CT. The broadcast is the same - in CT or on the web - so folks all over the planet hear the ads. The ads sold for the local stations in CT cover our costs in CT but that is a cost that never filters over to the web side. The price we picked for the commercial free stream will cover our bandwidth and operating costs for the service. At this point we are not looking to make a profit, just to cover expenses and see how the response is. We hope you like it!

Nicole...interesting insight into the world of running a radio station (hopefully for profit!)

I am curious...You say that the station grew out of the ads for local businesses and that the web-based station grew from that. The ads are the same for both. It seems like your listening base for the webcast is worldwide while the AM and FM stations are local. Given that, I would think that your advertising on the web based stream would be different...more geared to nationally selling companies and recognized brands and businesses. I would think that you sales folks would want to court a wider range of companies for advertising on the web side of the station since it reaches a different, expanded audience. Most of us listening on the web won't be able to visit the Student Prince Cafe (unless we happen to be in Mass), but we might be encouraged to shop at a national chain or company if we heard those ads on B.com

Whatever the case, you guys do a great job with the station which is why I will sign up for the "members only" ad-free stream. However, I really don't mind the ads. I would happily listen to the ads if I could get the free stream at work. Alas I have firewall issues on that. However the enhanced WMP stream seems to get through, therefore I will happily pay to listen in...ads or not.

[Shapley]

I'm sure the difficulty of juggling two sets of commercials simultaneously is more of headache than the station is wiling to deal with. The station is still a local station, and I'm sure the advertisers are pleased that they get national coverage for the local price.

Even so, I would think that national broadcasters would recognize the potential of advertising on internet radio. I've listened to a couple of other internet stations, and the advertising situation appears to be the same - no advertising or local advertising only. Those that do advertise tend to favour the purchase of internet links on the website rather than audio ads on the station.

Perhaps there's a fortune to be made for some enterprising listener to market global advertising on internet radio. Buy blocks of space on several stations to maximize coverage and sell ads to national or global chain stores, internet-only business, or other similar customers. Marketing is not my cup of tea, but it seems to be an untapped market for advertising dollars.

V/R
Shapley

[Nicole Marie]

You think it would be that easy... It's really not. The internet is huge and the technology has made it really interesting for advertisers. Most still prefer banner ads, imbedded ads (like in the media player) etc. To do marketing in the traditional "radio" way for internet advertising is still difficult. Why write a :60 spot and air it on an internet radio station and maybe get a response when instead you can do a banner ad offering a great deal and get that person to click on it. When someone clicks on an ad you instantly capture his or her info and can target market better. So in the world of online sales there are so many other ways to market and we take advantage that way outside of regular radio ads.

That being said... You do hear radio ads being sold on our station. ProFlowers, Sears etc. They are all big national clients. And yes many of our local clients put their web address in their radio ads and get clients from out of state too.

Also the AM and FM HD2 signals are really our bread and butter. The dot com is great but it is our local stations that make $$$. So our sales staff in CT really focuses in on them and it's great that we have this huge international audience... They come into CT for great events too. For example over St Patrick's two of our listeners from Ireland came to Hartford to visit. We have people who come in every year to Talcott Mt in the summer... so the local vibe is picked up on and our national and international listeners flock to the area to take part in what we do. It's pretty wild actually!

Shap - We do want to make $$$ at this! But right now you have to crawl before you walk so we want to see how it takes off and then open the door from there. But this way if you sign on now you get a great deal!

[Shapley]

I knew you weren't a non-profit.

I can understand your local sales staff focusing on local ad sales. It cuts down travel costs, among other things.

My suggestion was for someone independent of your station to do the marketing. Buy slots on a variety of stations, and sell them in 'bundles' based on internet radio market share. Listener market is an easy thing to figure out, since listeners are logged in, you should have a running total of listeners at a given time. The marketer approaches his customers with an air-time 'bundle' offering to reach 'X' thousands of listeners worldwide. The 'bundle' could include so many rock stations, so many classical, so many jazz, etc., airing the same spot at the same time (or not). The marketer would be responsible for contacting the individual stations and setting up play time, etc.

The market for this would be limited to nationwide or global customers, but I suspect there are enough of those to make it profitable.

Of course, they have to have they're own spots available to run in those slots when no bundle is sold, since radio stations hate dead air.

But, as I say, I'm not in marketing. Still, some energetic young person could probably make it work.

V/R
Shapley

[Shapley]

BTW, I like your new message in the "Members Log In" area. Glad to hear that response is high.

You'll be walking before you know it!

[Nicole Marie]

We have looked into national firms to sell for us but they tend to go out of business quickly or shut down the internet radio divisions fast. There are many more ways to market on the internet and the traditional radio sales on the internet has never kicked in the way we would like it to. We are working with a new compnay called InterNap starting in a few weeks. They will be trying to sell us to larger advertisers.... we'll see how it goes!

[Shapley]

Good luck! It seems to be a largely untapped market. I think it is left for some advertising whiz to sell it on its' finer points, and to find the customer market that can take the best advantage of it.

As I said, there's good money to be made for the person who can do that!

Look at PayPal. Somebody said "There needs to be a convenient and secure way for people to pay for their internet purchases without sending their credit card info to anybody and everybody, and thus was PayPal born. How much did eBay pay for it? $1.5 billion?

[Shapley]

BTW, I notice that the 'members log in' link is only visible if I'm on the home page. If I am in the bulletin board or the Chopin Mall and I click on 'Listen' I get the WMP Link and the Real Stream Link, but not the link for the (as yet non-existent) commercial-free stream.

Just something else for Chris to look at when he has nothing else to do.

V/R
Shapley