Do you know what benefits Internet radio provides as an ad platform?

Rush ICT infrastructure development led to appearing and deploying of the variety of new Internet related technologies and services. Internet radio, often named as web radio, net radio, streaming radio and e-radio, is one of the brightest examples representing services provided via the Web. 

 Internet radio poses an audio broadcasting service transmitted via the Internet, referred as usual to webcasting since it is not transmitted broadly through wireless means. Internet radio was launched in 1993, with Internet Talk Radio created by Carl Malamud. Since then Internet radio services, providing with the different kinds of news, sports, talk, and various genres of music that is available on traditional radio stations, are gaining more and more popularity among users throughout the world. 

Thus, according to Bridge Ratings & Research 2007 study of 3,000 Americans, as much as 19% of Americans, 12 and older, listen to Web-based radio stations, or, to be exact it was 57 million weekly listeners of Internet radio programs.

It’s also important to notice, that Internet radio stations, as well as other mass media, are a very attractive advertising platform that also allures businessmen and corporations. It’s obvious that advertising is a principal income item for Internet radio, like for the other media. Turning to the figures, in 2003, revenue from "online streaming music radio" reached $49 million. By 2006, the volume rose to $500 million. 

The most popular Internet radio stations include Yahoo Radio, AOL Radio, ShoutCast, Live 365, Spotify, LastFM, The Pirate Radio Network, Accuradio and DI.fm. According to the latest study, conducted by Radio Joint Audience Research (Rajar), growing number of people are abandoning their old radios and turning to online radio services. Thus, the number of Last.fm or Spotify listeners had risen, for the period of one year, by a million, reaching 4 million volume.

LastFM

LastFM, that considered being the world's largest social music platform, is a UK-based Internet radio and music community website, originated in 2002. The radio claims to have over 30 million active users based in more than 200 countries. In 2007 LastFM was purchased by CBS Interactive for £140m (or $280m). March, 24, 2009 it was announced that Last.fm would charge users, except those in the US, UK, or Germany, a subscription fee of €3.00 per month for use of Last.fm radio, that has become active since April, 27.

The site provides listeners with the ability to construct their own playlists based upon an artist or a genre of their choosing. For example, if an user types in ‘The Beatles’, the LastFM will play artists like The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, The Who, and a number of slightly lesser known artists. LastFM gives an opportunity to create a station around the certain users’ interests, and moreover, to learn artists, unknown previously, but whose creative work is close to user’s tastes. 

Last.fm is funded from the sale of online advertising space, monthly user subscriptions and donations. As for the advertising on the site, of course, it offers the wide range of advertisement related services. Promoting its advertising platform, site claims “Last.fm is the best way to get your brand seen by the online music community”. Advert formats, offered to labels and artists, as well as to agencies and individual advertisers, include MPUs, leaderboard and banners. Last.fm offers targeted ad placements to get the certain brand seen by the right people. (www.last.fm )

Spotify

Spotify considers to be a proprietary peer-to-peer music streaming service enabling instant listening to specific tracks or albums with almost no buffering delay. The Spotify listener can select from thousands of songs to build customized playlists. Music can be browsed by artists, albums or created playlists as well as by direct searches, though, it is not possible to save the streamed music for use outside the application, a link is provided to allow the listener to directly purchase the material via partner retailers. 

Spotify is getting popularity among listeners for dinner parties and barbecues. People are able to listen to Spotify on home stereo, so they are to invest in an Apple AirPort Express Base station (£79, Mac and PC compatible, apple.com/uk) and hook it up to speakers. If a listener wants to listen to Spotify through his hi-fi in no time, he should install a piece of software like Airfoil on Mac or PC (www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil, £18). A user must set up an account to use the software. This account can be used on several computers, though music playback is limited to one computer at a time. 

Since February 10, 2009 Spotify has been available to anyone in the UK without receiving an invitation. The service is not currently available in the United States and Canada. Nevertheless, Spotify is anticipated to be avaliable in the United States by the end of 2009. 

  Spotify’s free version is only available in parts of Western Europe during the ongoing beta programme although the subscription model should be available in almost all countries. However, applying to Spotify for free, listener will have to listen to an advert every 20 minutes or so. Listening to ad-free music will cost £9.99 ($14 USD) per month. So, Spotify is available in two flavors: a free version with advertising, and a premium version without.

 Spotify is funded by advertisements and paid subscriptions. It is available free to use in some European countries and is funded by advertising played periodically by the Spotify player at the intervals between songs. Occasionally ads appear in Spotify's graphical interface. Spotify’s ad-supported version is only available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom, France and Spain and in some of those countries an invitation is required. At the same time, the free version is not available in the Aland Islands as Spotify's system cannot handle the .ax TLD used in Aland.

Yahoo! Radio

Yahoo! Internet radio service is provided by Yahoo! owned Yahoo! Music. Yahoo! Music provides with a variety of music services, such as Internet radio, music videos, news, artist information, and original programming. In March 2007 Yahoo! Music became the number one online music site in terms of audience reach and total time spent.

Yahoo! Music launched Internet service with buying in 2001 LAUNCH Media, producers of the LAUNCHcast Internet radio service. Yahoo!’s internet radio service enables users to listen to more than 250 radio stations through any browser window. The site offers an eclectic mix of tracks, ranging from current chart-toppers to R&B, indie rock or Latin pop. Listeners are enabled to share their personal stations publicly and listen to other users' stations. Free users can only access specific stations labeled "free", that had a yellow icon whereas premium stations had a blue icon.

Couple days ago, federal appeals court worked out a decision Yahoo's LAUNCHcast music service was not interactive enough to be forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in licensing fees. LAUNCHcast enabled users to create stations that played songs based on how the user rated songs, artists and albums. Because of random nature of personalized playlists the appeals court ruled said LAUNCHcast was not required to pay individual licensing fees to copyright holders of each song it plays for its users. 

As for the commercial advertising, it can be heard between tracks by free subscribers of the Yahoo! service and its partners and affiliates. The advertisements generally last for 30 seconds. In 2007 Yahoo! added permanent banner ads to the LAUNCHcast player. As Launchcast was only compatible with Internet Explorer, chargeing for its banner ad blocker, users should either tolerate the banner ads or pay to block them. Alternatively they could use the Yahoo! Music Engine, which was called Jukebox in version 2 of the same software. 

In December 2008 Yahoo!’s LAUNCHcast was moved to CBS Radio Ad Platform, that more streaming audio inventory to sell, while Yahoo Launchcast advertisers cannot reach bigger audiences through CBS Radio's growing network. The system lets advertisers run national campaigns throughout the entire network, or localize campaigns down to a Zip code level. Additionally, advertisers can run display ads and video pre-rolls within the player. Ads are targeted across format, demographic, lifestyle, Zip code, and DMA. Advertisers can also target contextually. 

AOL Radio

AOL Radio was originated as Radio@AOL using technology from Real Networks on October 16, 2001 as part of the AOL 7.0 software. First month of operation reflected AOL to be one of AOL's most popular features, with 2.2 million members accessed Radio@AOL. Originally, Radio@AOL was available only to AOL Members.

Powered by CBS Radio AOL Radio is supported on Adobe Flash 9 and is compatible with web browsers supporting Flash 9 on Windows 2000 through Windows Vista and Mac OS X. Users can connect to AOL Radio through the web, AOL Client, and AOL Radio for Mac. July, 2008 AOL introduced a client for Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch via the App Store supplying mobile streaming of all stations though WiFi, EDGE and 3G cellular connections. AOL Radio is currently also available through the AOL Instant Messenger service, and Winamp.

Like Yahoo!’s LAUNCHcast, on March, 2008 AOL radio service set up a content and advertising partnership with CBS Radio, that let AOL's listeners to access CBS content. The AOL-CBS agreement combined AOL Radio's 200 Internet radio programs with CBS Radio's 150 terrestrial radio stations from all over the country, including WTGB-FM (94.7) and WJFK. CBS Radio takes over advertising sales for AOL Radio, which is run from AOL's former headquarters in Dulles. The two companies split revenue from ad sales. 

ShoutCast

ShoutCast is developed by Nullsoft server software for streaming media. Mainly, listeners are applying to SHOUTcast for creating or listening to Internet audio broadcasts. SHOUTcast gives an ability to inexpensively set up an Internet broadcasting station, so hobbyists and large radio network owners alike can use it to set up their own broadcasting network for a fraction of the cost of a traditional AM broadcasting or FM radio station. Thus, SHOUTcast supplyes with a widest range of stations within its 24 genres and countless subgenres, covering everything from Bubblegum pop to Impressionist Classical.

SHOUTcast’s main feature is the ability to optionally publish server information, such as current number of listeners, in a directory of stations that Nullsoft maintains on the SHOUTcast website. Users can select a station to listen to and download a playlist file for use in their own SHOUTcast-capable media player.

The number of SHOUTcast listeners has been surging rapidly since its launch ten years ago. As of 2008 it was normal the presence of 600,000 concurrent listeners during peak hours. 

Interestingly, some traditional radio stations use SHOUTcast to extend their presence onto the Web.

Live365

Live365 claims to be one of the most comprehensive internet radio directories currently available. The majority of Live365 broadcasters are hobbyists and music devotees, but several set up small AM and FM stations also utilize Live365 to stream their audio via the Internet. Live365 supplies with software to upload MP3 files and schedule playlists to run at certain times.

Live365 makes it incredibly easy to find the music that suits any taste, providing with the search service by song type and genre, as well as selection from the site’s list of daily recommendations. Thus, customers are enabled to create their own radio stations by purchasing a "Broadcaster" membership. Broadcast service membership includes the number of features and capability, providing with the choice of packages suit any needs. Personal Broadcast services let the broadcaster to create a playlist of MP3 files that are streamed to listeners.

Advanced broadcasters can also download software to broadcast "live" using a home PC, stable bandwidth connection, and a microphone or mixing board. Professional broadcaster memberships include royalty and licensing packages for ASCAP, BMI and SESAC fees. Advanced users can also get benefits from external sources.

The majority of ?Live365 broadcasters uses the advertising/sponsorship model to get profits.? ??Live365? ?does not require any percentage of its broadcasters’ ad revenue. Any audio ads just can be inserted as any MP3. As for the player window, if a broadcaster has the HTML or Flash knowledge, he can build his own one that features any advertising he desires.

Before placing the advertisement a broadcaster has to admit the following requirements Live365 set (www.live365.com):

• broadcaster may serve banner advertisements, audio advertisements and other forms of advertisements and promotions related to broadcaster’s Internet Radio Programs; 
• broadcaster can derive sponsorship revenue, commissions, syndication fees, and other forms of revenue based on or related to his Internet Radio Programs;
• broadcaster can include his user name and descriptions of his Internet Radio Programs in a directory on the Site and in promotions associated with the Site; 
• in cases the Internet Radio Programs are performed via an audio player that has the ability to display visual material, broadcaster may serve Live365 visual material simultaneously with the delivery of his Internet Radio Programs to the extent permitted by law. 

Besides, broadcaster is to agree not to block, delete or otherwise interfere with Live365's ability to serve advertising or display sponsored content on the Site or within his Internet Radio Programs. Moreover, Live365 reserve the right to place and conduct all advertisements, sponsorships and promotions, and collect all forms of commissions and other revenue, without compensation of any kind.

Accuradio

Accuradio is an independent, multichannel Internet radio holding, offering a great selection of stations within each genre. Listeners are enabled to select from over 300 channels of rock, pop, jazz, classical, oldies, country, urban, Latin, vocals and world. Accuradio markets itself as “The next generation of radio”. Accuradio considered being perfect for classical listeners, with different stations dedicated to various instruments and periods. Moreover it claims to be an alternative music streaming radio to Last.fm. 

Accuradio has also launched two subsites that are not listed in the main site's complete channel listing or anywhere else on the main site, chitownsmoothjazz.com and phillysmoothjazz.com.

Being the first multichannel Internet radio station desgined specifically for adults with sophisticated musical tastes, AccuRadio gains up to a million listeners per month. Accuradio is usually ranked 10th most listened to web streaming service, though it can vary from month to month.

As for the Accuradio‘s advertising platform, the Internet radio property is delighted to collaborate with record labels to help promote new releases (as we have done with Sony Music, WB Records, Angel/EMI, and Bloodshoot Records), including promoting those releases to 850,000-person mailing list. 

AccuRadio utilizes several advertising services such as Google AdSense, Fastclick, and Advertising.com, according to www.accuradio.com, as these companies may seize and automatically collect information about users’ visits to this and other web sites in order to provide advertisements that may be of certain interest. The information they use is not personally identifiable, and does not contain name, email address, physical address, or phone number. Additionaly, AccuRadio.com prevents the appearance of such advertisers who attempt to install spyware or other kinds of malware onto the system, advertisers who make false claims to collect personal information, or advertisers who utilise sound or "browser takeover" methods in the advertisements themselves.

The Pirate Radio Network

Internet version of Pirate Radio markets itself as the easiest way to broadcast any kind of radio show over the Internet from a personal PC. Pirate Radio users need only a Windows-based PC, sound card and a connection to the Internet and something to blast out to reach listeners all over the Internet. 

The Pirate’s RadioDestiny Broadcaster lets the listeners play any combination of live input and digital audio over the Internet in a few easy steps: broadcast MP3s, .wavs; hook up your microphone and mix between the sources.

The Destiny Media Player plays all popular audio file formats and listeners to organize and arrange all any kind of digital audio files into playlists, libraries - all easily accessible from anywhere a computer. 

Any Internet user can buy The Pirate Radio online version for $39.95, getting a download link to the full version of Pirate Radio. The download link will be active for 48 hours. 

Pirate Radio Internet version presents a very modest advertising platform, containing mainly payment systems suppliers’ or credit card issuers’ ads. 

DI.fm

Digitally Imported Radio, or DI.fm, represents free multi-channel Internet radio service specializing in Electronic Dance Music genres, featuring world renowned Artists, DJs, and the hottest exclusive shows that has gone online since the late 1999. DI.fm offers its listeners to choose from the wide range of channels, for example, Tech House, Psychill, Chillout Dreams, Club Sounds, EuroDance, Trance, etc. 

All the DI.fm’s channels are offered in three streaming formats: Mp3, Windows Media, and aacPlus formats. Users can listen to any of the channels for free, or go Premium for super high quality and 100% commercial free.

Besides providing the listeners with all the radio entertainment services, DI.fm supplies different types of businesses, marketing itself as a strong ads platform. DI.fm targets audience is much more likely to understand and purchase the product in comparison to other target groups.

Thus, DI.fm offers many different advertisement options and combinations to suite specific advertising needs. DI.fm promises advertisers to give a positive brand connotation due to the uniquely targeted branding opportunities. Moreover, supporting the listeners favorite radio station the radio is also to provide advertisers with a positive brand connotation.

Well, it’ s obvious, that Internet radio services, became popular not only as providers of typical radio services online, promoting an audio broadcasting service transmitted via the Internet, but as an attractive for different types of businesses and corporations ads platform. That let Internet radio stations, of course to obtain a significant part of the revenues from advertising.