broadcast radio

In late March, West Coast shock-jock legend Tom Leykis launched a daily web radio show (RAIN coverage here).

Now, two weeks later, Leykis says his new show (found at blowmeuptom.com) has attracted around 400,000 listeners. The show's podcast gatehred 500 subscribers in its first seven days, said Leykis.

Leykis left the airwaves in February 2009 when KLSX-FM/Los Angeles owner CBS Radio changed the format to top-40.

Radio-Info has more coverage here.

After leaving Ohio station WDJQ-FM, two morning hosts -- like many others -- started their own Internet radio station. But WDJQ sued the former hosts for violating a one-year noncompetition provision.

Stark County Common Pleas Court Judge Charles E. Brown denied the injunction request. The Youngstown Vindicator writes (here) it may "be a landmark case."

"It’s definitely a first-of-its-kind thing," said the attorney representing the two hosts. He argued that the non-compete did not apply because it only barred the duo (Patrick DeLuca and Charlotte DiFranco, pictured) from running a business "the same or essentially the same as a commercial radio station."

DeLuca and DiFranco broadcast three live shows weekly from www.theradiosucks.com.

Hat-tip to Radio-Info and Tom Taylor.

Streaming radio aggregator TuneIn today launched a new analytics platform intended to provide broadcasters with free detailed info about their online listening.

Called TuneIn Amplifier, the service reveals how many unique listeners tuned in, how many total listens (or "tunes," bascially the equivalent of session starts) the station accumulated and listening hours. Each metric, of course, only includes listeners who used TuneIn's website or apps to stream. Stats can be broken down by date and location of listeners.

TuneIn Amplifier also offers information about listener donations, if the station is listener-supported and has partened with TuneIn Donate (RAIN coverage here). Broadcasters can also edit their TuneIn profile data through the platform.

TuneIn hopes broadcasters will use the information to better monetize their online and mobile audience.

"This version of TuneIn Amplifier is only the first step," says TuneIn Senior Marketing Manager Ryan Polivka. The company tells RAIN they hope to expand Amplifier's functionality to include data like dayparts, more specific listener demographics and even real-time analytics.

Broadcasters can head to amplifier.tunein.com and sign up for a free account to view their metrics.

TuneIn's directory includes more than 50,000 web radio streams. Users can listen through TuneIn's website (here), the company's many mobile apps, through TV and home music system apps and in-car apps. Ford announced at CES in January that it was bringing TuneIn to its Sync dashboards, alongside Pandora, iHeartRadio and other services (RAIN coverage here).

Paragon Media's Larry Johnson blogged this week about Internet streams of broadcast radio stations increasingly appearing in Arbitron PPM ratings.

To be listed in the PPM ratings report, a  "station or combo must have received at least one quarter-hour of listening credit from at least one In-Tab panelist and a Metro Cume rating of 0.495 or greater."

It's that second part, the cume rating, that's the greatest challenge for Internet streams being listed, he says. Paragon did an analysis of October ratings in four PPM markets, and found 18 station streams with enough listening to register in PPM. "However, only 22% of those listed stations posted 6+ Shares in October 2011 (Persons 6+ Monday-Sunday 6a-Midnight)." Obviously, any stream that made it in the listing had some listening. But the measurements are subject to rounding error, and those small audiences rounded down to zero.

"It would be great if all Internet, time-shifted archives/podcasts, mobile, and satellite radio were coded and accessible in the local market reports so we could get a comprehensive view of the audio listening landscape," Johnson wrote. "Now that the listing hurdle has been cleared, look for your station’s Internet stream to be an even more important part of your ratings profile."

Read the Paragon Media blog here.

A Borrell Associates report predicts that U.S. radio’s total online ad revenue will grow 85% next year, reaching $539.4 million. And for the first time, online audio advertising will bring in more dollars for radio than on-site display ads, Borrell says.

"While traditional local online ad spending will grow double-digits again next year," Inside Radio writes, "the real sizzle to this advertising steak is now found in mobile spending.  Borrell Associates forecasts 88% of all local online advertising will viewed on tablets, smartphones or GPS-enabled laptops by 2016." Borrell predicts local mobile advertising will spike 66% in 2012 to $4.3 billion.

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