Is Verizon's Mobile Web Browser worth a $350 ETF?
Are the music features in Verizon’s Mobile Web browser worth the data costs and high early termination fee? We talked with current and prospective Verizon consumers about the issue.
The decade’s most important radio trends #1: The birth and troubled childhood of satellite Radio
At end of the first decade of the 21st century there are more audio entertainment options available than any time before. Even if traditional broadcast radio has a case of the doldrums, the viability of radio-like media has never been stronger. Satellite radio is one medium that entered the scene, although its long-term prognosis is […]
The decade's most important radio trends: #2 The growth of Internet radio
Although today’s New York Times claims that “Internet Radio Stations are the New Wave,” a look back at the past decade makes it very clear that Internet Radio’s growing influence is hardly revolutionary news. In fact, it’s hard to overstate the importance of the Internet and Internet Radio during the last 10 years. The radio […]
Twitterers call and pray for Rush Limbaugh to die, live, not die, or all of the above
As everybody in the radio world knows, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh is in a Honolulu hospital, recovering from chest pains. Meanwhile, something of a referendum on his fate is being conducted on Twitter. “Please, Rush Limbaugh, DIE NOW!” tweeted Chuck69dotcom not too long ago. “oh pleez oh pleez oh pleez let Rush Limbaugh […]
The decade's most important radio trends #3: iPod and iTunes lure listeners away from terrestrial radio
Music listening has changed dramatically in the past decade in large part because of the rise of digital music. Following the explosion and shut down of illegal file sharing service Napster (1999-2001), a variety of digital music companies attempted to profit from the burgeoning interest in music delivery via the Internet. Some focused on music […]
The decade’s most important radio trends: #4 Podcasting
August 13 of this year marked the fifth anniversary of podcasting. On that date in 2004 former MTV VJ Adam Curry began his Daily Source Code podcast, ushering the term into the popular consciousness. Like so many innovative ideas, podcasting is quite simple. It’s not like there weren’t online radio programs prior to 2004. The […]
NPR calls for Congress to create "common public media waiver"
As we’ve reported, National Public Radio has been filing comments with the Federal Communications Commission a lot these days, talking up its localism initiative, Android app, and new mobile site. NPR’s latest commentary to the FCC on its National Broadband Plan reiterates all these points. But here’s the paragraph in the filing that got our […]
The decade’s most important radio trends: #5 The Age of Pandora
It’s difficult for me to write about the Internet radio phenomenon without disclosing my personal investment in the subject. I listen to the Pandora radio service most every day that I work at my computer. Pandora has saved classical music radio for me, and, I’ll bet, for tens of thousands of others. I love classic […]
The decade's most important radio trends #6: HD Radio launches, but who listens? Who cares?
June 12, 2009 is a day that will live on in broadcast history. That’s the day that the nation’s television broadcasters switched off their analog signals and went all-digital forever more. But does anyone remember January 7, 2003? That was the date of the very first digital HD Radio broadcast, originating at Detroit FM station […]
The decade's most important radio trends: #7 Internet Radio's Day of Silence
One of the more frustrating peculiarities of our system of broadcasting here in the United States is that over-the-air radio stations don’t have to pay performance royalties to artists, while Internet and satellite stations do. If this wasn’t enough, in March of 2007 the Copyright Royalty Board announced what most streamers experienced as pretty steep […]