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September 28, 2016 11:47 am  #1


It’s Bell Vs. Everybody Else As Radio Streaming Wars Loom

By now you’ve likely heard that Bell Media in Canada has partnered with iHeartRadio as its official radio streaming app. iHeart is big in the U.S., the successor to Clear Channel, a company that gobbled up a huge number of American stations (and in many minds all but destroyed local radio in whatever market it marched into. But I digress.) Its streaming app is popular in North America and as the largest radio owner in Canada (with 106 outlets across the country) Bell looked to get a major leg up on its competitors by having all its services available in one easy app.
 
But that changed on Wednesday when just about every other radio owner here announced they’ve jumped into a deal with something called RadioPlayer, which is essentially the iHeart equivalent in the U.K. While Bell goes it alone, RadioPlayer will be launching in Canada with the following owners in tow:
 
Rogers, Central Ontario Broadcasting, Clear Sky Radio, Cogeco, Corus, Durham Radio, Golden West, Harvard Broadcasting, Larche Communications, Newcap, Pattison, Rawlco, RNC Media, Saskatoon Media Group and Vista Radio.
 
That’s a pretty impressive list and you can now expect to see a new war break out between these two groups for radio streaming supremacy in the Great White North. While Bell is on track to give a big push to their new partners soon (has anyone noticed that as of today, RB's top of the hour ID now contains the line "an iHeartMedia station?") , RP will be announcing its launch date in “the coming weeks.” And since many believe the future of the medium may well lie in getting their audio stream into cars, it’s going to be interesting to see who wins this battle for the minds – and ears – of Canadians. 

Either way, prepare to be inundated with ads about it. Whatever you're listening to.

Alan Cross: Radioplayer is Finally Coming to Canada. This is a Big Deal for the Industry.

Last edited by RadioActive (September 28, 2016 12:02 pm)

 

September 28, 2016 12:09 pm  #2


Re: It’s Bell Vs. Everybody Else As Radio Streaming Wars Loom

Is it?  

I read this this morning and it reminded me of the early days of the Internet where people tried to create the perfect 'bookmark portal', so that I'd set my home page to 'Toronto links' and it would be all the newspapers, weather etc.  But inevitably it didn't have something I was looking for, so I'd give up on it.  Maintaining my own was a pain in the ass, so now it's just google.   BTW, if you do want a quick overview of local news, gtaupdate.com is a good starting page .

TuneIn has been offering almost all the stations for ages, till the stations started to try and 'block' other services so that their pop up player would be the only route to get the ad clicks.  Inevitably there were ways around it.

When Rogers initially launched their 680 news app, it was ip-blocked to only allow Rogers Internet subscribers to listen on line and use it.  Insanely stupid short sighted ill informed consultant logic, that someone in upper management agreed to.  Thankfully that didn't last long, but it did show that not every decision is logically thought out.    

By a landslide, any on line rebroadcast of a station I'm working with has the lions share of its listeners coming in via iTunes and TuneIn is a close second.   'Normal' people (not you!) want the simplest solution, and for them, that's it.  One of the stations wanted to go the 'streamtheworld' route and drop iTunes, against all logic, that's what they did, and their listener numbers dropped by 95%.  Apparently people weren't interested in the extra steps of going to their website, loading it up, clicking on the 'listen now' button and keeping a browser window open on their desktop along with everything else.  (Duh!)

I think this is a short sighted (dumb) idea for the 'major' stations.  It hilights a basic misunderstanding that 'delivery' of the signal should be of value as well as the content of the signal itself.  There's also that minor detail that your listener is paying cash money, one way or the other, for every second they listen to that online content.  So they're now:
1. paying to stream the signal,
2. that they're being bombarded with ads in your crappy player in order to listen to,
3. to be able to listen to the ads on your station.  
It's a bit like the CNE model of paying money to get to a place where you get to pay money to get into a place where you can spend money.  How well is that working out for anyone under 90.

You also go from being a needle in a haystack to a needle in a haystack somewhere on a continent, all so that someone in Birmingham or Brussels can listen to your live feed, which there's no real monetization for.   Yes, you get to narrow in by GPS, but you also then hi light your competitors in that market, and introduce your audience to a potentially 'better' product.  If I was bait and tackle radio in Hooterville I'd be all over it, because it puts me on a level playing field with the biggies.  

I have 4 radio 'apps' on my phone, Bell for CFRB, 640, 680 and Kiss.  That's it.  I rarely go near TuneIn any more unless I'm listening to something out of market.  When I'm not using one of those, I generally use the Spotify app.  I'm by no means a 'normal' listener, But if I download an app to listen to Q107, and in doing so I'm introduced to xray.fm in Oregon, a highly repetitious Cancon free zone, how did that help anyone other than me?

Everyone is screaming 'hyper local', I agree.  Given a bit, I'm pretty sure they will come around and realize the same thing applies to their apps that applies to the station.

Oh well...


Madness takes its toll.  Please have exact change.
 
 

September 28, 2016 1:00 pm  #3


Re: It’s Bell Vs. Everybody Else As Radio Streaming Wars Loom

Well I don't completely disagree with almost anything you said, and I would most certainly endorse the idea that the KISS method - Keep It Simple, Stupid - is the best way to go. But for some reason, that's not what these Goliaths have decided and I'm guessing when Bell went to iHeart everyone else believed they had no choice but to fight them on their own virtual battlefield. The RadioPlayer deal is the result. Whether the public actually cares is another matter entirely. 

For local talk - stuff that's going on in your city - the stations in your area are the only major choice. But for music outlets, I prefer something like AccuRadio, which not only lets you pick the specific genre you want, but allows you unlimited skips when a song you don't care for comes through your speaker. And it's free - with almost no commercials - which is basically unbeatable.  

As for me, while I occasionally stream out of market radio OTA stations, for the most part when I want to listen to local radio I do the unthinkable in 2016 - I simply turn on the radio. Costs me nothing, gives me what I want, I don't have to sign up or give up any personal info and I have instant access to other stations at the touch of a button - no buffering, data charges or connecting required! What will they think of next?

     Thread Starter
 

September 28, 2016 1:14 pm  #4


Re: It’s Bell Vs. Everybody Else As Radio Streaming Wars Loom

I should note that here in Buffalo, we have no iHeartMedia stations....BUT, on the iHeart app, you can stream WGRF(97 Rock), WEDG(103.3 The Edge)and WHTT(Classic Hits 104.1)as well as WHLD(SportsRadio 1270 The Fan). They all add the words "a Cumulus station" in their legal IDs.

 

September 28, 2016 4:24 pm  #5


Re: It’s Bell Vs. Everybody Else As Radio Streaming Wars Loom

RadioActive wrote:

 I don't completely disagree with almost anything you said  

you'd better not disagree; he's the board monitor/the law     

as Officer Holstein told John Milner in American Graffiti "you can't fool with the law"
 

 

September 28, 2016 10:34 pm  #6


Re: It’s Bell Vs. Everybody Else As Radio Streaming Wars Loom

The app is now live. Aside from the local stations and one Canadian and one Francophone branded station, there is no original content. All or most of the iHeart American digital stations are on there, (sorry, no local US.) So far, no access via desktop like the American counterpart. A few bugs on the app with french subheadings as well as mislabeled "now playing" titles. Reminds me of SiriusXM a bit with all the US programmed genre formats. I guess the good thing (or bad depending on your pov) is no CanCon on the digital stations.
 

Last edited by Sunny (September 28, 2016 10:58 pm)

 

September 29, 2016 12:01 pm  #7


Re: It’s Bell Vs. Everybody Else As Radio Streaming Wars Loom

FYIMusic has some interesting insights into how this came about - and what may be next.

Radioplayer vs iHeart: Broadcasters Ready to Duke It Out Over Mobile Apps

Also an interview with Rogers' Julie Adam on why they decided to go with RadioPlayer and not join Bell's iHeart deal.

Rogers Radio SVP Julie Adam on the Radioplayer Strategy

     Thread Starter
 

March 1, 2017 10:56 am  #8


Re: It’s Bell Vs. Everybody Else As Radio Streaming Wars Loom

So after all that hype stretching back to last September, RadioPlayer Canada is finally here, officially launching March 1st. But the question remains how many will actually use it? It claims to give users access to 400 stations across the country, including the ability to catch up on shows you wanted to hear but may have missed. (We had another word for this: podcasts. But I digress.) 

Corus radio head Troy Reeb was on AM 640 Wednesday morning, tubthumping the new app - although if you go to their website to hear it, you'll find it's still on Soundcloud, which I have to assume they'll eventually be abandoning. You can still listen live the old fashioned way on their site, as well.  

So far, it doesn't appear the big guys - mostly Corus and Rogers - have redesigned their websites to feature the newcomer, like Bell did when iHeartradio launched here - to IMHO, the Bell Media sites' detriment.

I haven't used the app yet and may not - the one thing I instantly don't like about it is that it's restricted to Canadian stations only. There are no U.S. or British outlets available, unlike iHeart's standard, which offers content North America-wide from participating stations.  

Interesting to note the CBC has thrown its lot into this thing, brewing an entirely new battle between Bell and well, everybody else. I love this quote from Reeb on the Global article announcing the app

“The great thing about this is it’s the whole Canadian radio industry working together — save for one company — so there’s a single standard for where you can get access to almost any kind of format, any kind of music, any kind of opinion, and hopefully a lot of news, in one place,” he noted.

Nicely stick handled, even if that "one company" is a huge player that owns more stations across Canada than anyone else.  So it's up to the public now to decide if this works or if they even care enough to bother downloading it. Will you?

RadioPlayer Canada

     Thread Starter
 

March 1, 2017 11:41 am  #9


Re: It’s Bell Vs. Everybody Else As Radio Streaming Wars Loom

geo wrote:

RadioActive wrote:

 I don't completely disagree with almost anything you said  

you'd better not disagree; he's the board monitor/the law     

as Officer Holstein told John Milner in American Graffiti "you can't fool with the law"
 

Well I have been seeing RadioActive listed as the site mod for some time now ? 
 


Cool Airchecks and More:
http://www.lettheuniverseanswer.com/
 

March 1, 2017 12:02 pm  #10


Re: It’s Bell Vs. Everybody Else As Radio Streaming Wars Loom

Still too many growing pains with radio / music and that whole gimmick called the internet.

For example, listening to a talk station this morning, coming back from the break, they played Rush' Subdivisions.  I decided I would rather hear the rest of that track, so switched over to google play, it went to another cut on my playlist, ADD kicked in, even though I was enjoying listening to the talk station, and GP has been playing in the BG while I work for the last hour or so. (Work, HA!)  Seriously though, If talk can trigger listeners to so easily switch to music, how the hell do we get them back to talk again?  There's no inverse trigger mechanism .

There's an almost schizophrenic consultant fueled panic when it comes to internet and radio broadcasting,  In typical fashion, the advice is contradictory and I'd argue deliberately vague.  It can't be wrong if you can't pin down what it was.  "Radio needs to be hyper local' so we'll put it on an app with 10,000 other choices.  As I said, not a needle in a haystack, a needle in a haystack on a farm somewhere in a province that's located somewhere in a country, somewhere on earth, but we're not telling you which one or where.  

Unless the station has a format so completely unique that it just can't be replicated, and there are a few of them, you end up with Katy Perry sounding pretty much the same on BBC Radio 1 as she does on Virgin, Chum-FM or Bob.  (She might sound different on Bob, but that's another story..)

Doug Thompson's "Radio Kandy" would have been a great example of something that would have been 'worth' putting on the internet, because the music was pretty much the same, but the glue was completely different and not available elsewhere.  So just roll it 24/7 and when listeners join they join.  Though, (sore point) when another 'internet' station simulcasts that feed, they've just defined redundant.  

"Big" John Biff Carmichael 'spinning the hits' and 'playin' the boss music, the boss wants him to play' with 'time and temp coming up..." somewhere (anywhere) in the country simply won't cut it online, and is only hurting the local market the station serves when it gives any consideration whatsoever to their 'net' feed.

I use the iHeart app to listen to 'RB, and sometimes CFRA, but for the other stations I pretty much use their 'station' app.  

I'm not pretending I have the answers, I don't.  I'm just not convinced anyone out there is asking the right questions at this point in the game anyway.
 


Madness takes its toll.  Please have exact change.
 
 

March 1, 2017 12:15 pm  #11


Re: It’s Bell Vs. Everybody Else As Radio Streaming Wars Loom

ig wrote:

 If talk can trigger listeners to so easily switch to music, how the hell do we get them back to talk again?  

Depends on the music