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Freeze-Frame Radio -> Freeze-Frame Radio Lounge -> Email From Live365 - March 28, 2007
Post Info TOPIC: Email From Live365 - March 28, 2007
Jeremy Riggs


2011 Super Bowl Champions!

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Email From Live365 - March 28, 2007
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We just received the email below from Live365.  In summary it states they will be increasing the number of times they run a block of advertising. 

Currently they run ad blocks every 15 minutes, they'll be changing it to every 12.  This seems like an awful lot of ads to me.

Here's OUR main concern at Freeze-Frame Radio however.

Live365 allows us two ways to broadcast.  BASIC & LIVE.

Broadcasting in BASIC mode means we upload maybe 200 songs to their server and it's played automatically.  This allows them to place their ads as they please.

Broadcasing in LIVE mode, like we do, means we dynamically control the playlist, which allows for requests, DJ's to be on air and NO COMMERCIALS.  There is no way for Live365 to place commercials in our stream, and they have said recently they don't believe they ever will be capable of doing that.

Our newest concern is that LIVE broadcasting at some point will be stopped by Live365, or at the very least severly limited (they have one package which allows for only 5% live programming), because they can't earn revenue off of us.

For my own two cents, I think they're beginning to exploit this situatioin as an opportunity to line their own pockets.  I doubt very highly that if an agreement is reached six months down the road with the RIAA that Live365 will roll back these changes.

We'll see.

Here's the letter...

---------------------------------

Dear Live365 Broadcaster,

As you may be aware, the Copyright Royalty Board recently issued alarmingly high new royalty rates for Internet radio for the period 2006-2010. The
ruling increases sound recording royalties by 140% over four years and includes a $500 minimum fee per station per year.  The new rates are so high
that they exceed revenue generated from audio and visual advertising on our stations.  See http://www.live365.com/choice/ for more information on the
CRB ruling and what you can do about it.

Although we are appealing the new rates, the outcome of an appeal will take some time.  In the meantime, the new rates go into effect immediately and
Live365 must pay higher rates retroactively from January 2006. We will not charge our broadcasters for any of these retroactive fees, but we do need
to pay the additional royalties for the past 15 months and the future.
We are taking several steps to help us recoup these fees, pay the new royalties, and keep down your broadcasting costs.  In the past week, we have
rolled out our "Are you still there?" campaign on a limited basis and confined most listening to our own ad-bearing Player Window.  If an ad-based
business model is to succeed, though, we need to find ways to generate more advertising revenues on our existing stations by serving more ads on more
stations and selling ads for more money over wider stretches of time throughout the day.  As one of the first such measures, beginning Thursday,
March 29th, we will decrease ad block intervals from 15 minutes to 12 minutes -- so the frequency of in-stream ad blocks will increase approximately
to five per hour.

While we certainly recognize that this may have a negative impact on some non-paying listeners' listening experience, the impact is expected to be
minimal, because each ad block is only around 60 seconds long. Eventually, we'd like to settle back down to three or four blocks per hour with two or
three ads per block, when the Internet advertising market is ready to make this change and when we roll out a more powerful ad-insertion engine to
handle multiple advertisers per block.

We appreciate your understanding that without an ad-supported business model, broadcasting fees would be many times higher than it is today. Thank
you for your continued support of Live365, particularly in a critical time like this.
If you want broadcast packages that carry no Live365 ads, please contact us at pro-broadcast@live365.com.

Regards,

Live365 Broadcasting Team


-- Edited by Jeremy Riggs at 17:49, 2007-03-28

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squonk


RetroMan

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Wow. This is getting way to complicated for the regular guy. I can see the need to support the programming but, gee wiz, commercials? I guess they haven't heard of TiVo etc, people can watch television without interruptions like, say commercials. Unless, of course they enjoy commercials.
Good commercials, very rare, actually do offer something of value to us. Most of the crap that will run on air would no doubt be crap.
Sorry to hear that they are trying to suck the positive energy of your quest right out of you.

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