We thought our readers would find the results interesting so we are posting part of the report hear. Be sure to visit the KelseyGroup to read the full report.

“we define local ads as having a geo-targeting component meant to reach users in a specific location, or has location specific calls to action.

In general terms, that’s the same definition we apply to all of the local media we cover such as radio, television, newspapers, online/interactive and YP. But of course, this is taking different (read: more granular) forms with the location targeting capabilities of the mobile device.

With that said, we see total U.S. mobile ad spending growing from $790 million in 2010 to $4 billion in 2015. But the local portion of that total will grow from $404 million to $2.8 billion. In other words, the local portion of the total will grow from 51 percent to 70 percent by 2015″.

If you are seeking to increase your web presence as well as develop attractiveness to advertisers, be sure your website has the ability to to be mobile accessible.

(to download the mobile app for Full Cirkle Media Group, click here)

There has been a lot of talk in the radio industry about how the growth of mobile device streaming is going to be stifled by over-demand and the lack of internet provisioning. The fact is, all of the major bandwidth companies are gearing up for this huge explosion in user demand by constantly building out their networks. According to Gerry Butters, the former head of Bell Lab’s Lucent Optical Networking Group, the amount of data coming out of an optical fiber is doubling every nine months. So therefore, the cost of transmitting over a fiber optical network also decreases by half, every nine months. The availability of wavelength multiplexing is also rapidly bringing down the cost of network transmissions, further assuring lower costs in the future. Could this be the new Moore’s law . . . or Butter’s Law?

As a matter of fact, smartphone and smart device usage has grown by 89% since the 1st quarter of 2010, while the cost of a megabyte of mobile data has dropped 46% in the same time period. A smartphone user today pays 8 cents a megabyte, compared to 14 cents a megabyte a year ago. Nielsen also reports that 40% of mobile subscribers in the US now own a smartphone, and that number is growing rapidly. I can also state factually from my own business involvement with deploying networks over the last 15 years, that we have seen our bulk bandwidth costs also drop significantly as well, especially in just the last few years alone. A lot of this has to do with the huge build-out of fiber networks during the late ‘90s.

Online streaming will continue to be a tremendous source of content distribution. As the price of the technology decreases more and more people will fing this New Media platform an ideal way to reach consumers. How are you taking advantage of the technology?

Maybe I am a little sensitive to the issue, being the son of a pioneer broadcaster myself, but for the sake of the many people whose passion is to continue the legacy of broadcast history, at least those teaching it should dig a little deeper. I sat in a class on media programming the other day listening to the instructor retell the history of  R&B when the statement was made that there was  disc jockey by the name of Alan Freed who was the first radio-personality to do “stage shows” featuring live acts.

Now the problem with that story is that it simply isn’t true.  If you were to research the Billboard and Cashbox trade magazines from that era, you would see that quite a few African American dee-jays were already doing the shows and playing the music that Mr. Freed duplicated.

Alan Freed, Dick Clark and many other white dee-jays from that time period were amazed at the on-air personality styles, presentation and music of black radio. They mimicked what they heard (quite a compliment), took it mainstream and rewrote the story.

The documentation is out there but so few seem interested in taking the time to discover it and far few less seem interested in retelling the story of urban radio. The individual who preceeded Mr. Freed with the stage shows was none of Tommy “Dr. Jive” Smalls Sr. Below is a  small account of Dr. Jive’s career.

Born in Savannah, Georgia, he attended Savannah State College, and, after a period in the US Coast Guard, became the first black disc jockey in Savannah in 1947 on radio stationWSAV.^[1] In 1952 he moved to New York, and became the original “Dr. Jive” on radio station WWRL. His weekday afternoon radio shows – with the slogan “Sit back and relax and enjoy the wax / From three-oh-five to five-three-oh, it’s the Dr. Jive show” – became popular with teenagers and featured vocal groups, blues, rock and roll and Latin music.

In 1955 he began to present live rhythm and blues revues from the Rockland Palace and the Apollo Theater, and in November 1955 presented an unprecedented 12 minute segment on the nationally-networked Ed Sullivan Show featuring Bo Diddley, LaVern Baker, the Five Keys, and Willis “Gator Tail” Jackson.^[2] By the end of 1955, he had purchased the Smalls Paradise club inHarlem, and in May 1956 he was elected to the unofficial post of “Mayor of Harlem”, with a parade held through the town in his honor.^[3]

In 1960, Smalls, along with fellow disc jockey Alan Freed, was arrested and charged in the “payola” scandal, when both were accused of taking bribes to play records on their radio shows, and his radio career ended.^[3] He later became promotions manager for Polydor Records in New York. He was also one of the founding members of the National Association of TV and Radio Announcers (NATRA).^[1]

Let’s not allow our pioneers to be forgotten and let’s make sure the story is kept alive for the sake of those who will come after us.

Music service Limewire was just hit a 105 million dollar judgement to be paid to the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

Last October the music-sharing platform had an injunction entered against it in federal court, in a case brought by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). Then came a jury trial to determine damages, but “the settlement puts an end to those deliberations”, says The Hollywood Reporter. The RIAA’s Mitch Bainwol calls the deal just approved by Judge Kimba Wood “another milestone in the continuing evolution of online music to a legitimate marketplace that appropriately rewards creators.”

On the Lime Wire side, its attorney observes that “the plaintiffs have pressed for a $75 trillion verdict. The court labeled that claim ‘absurd.’ Plaintiffs then claimed that they suffered $40-50 billion of damages and that Lime Wire was responsible for it all. At other times, they have claimed that the damages exceeded $1.4 billion.” The Hollywood Reporter says Lime Wire has settled with music publishers for $11 million – but still faces “other legal action.”

Source: Radio-info.com

I have noticed many of these stations adding webstreams to their websites, as if that solves the Program Director’s lack of fresh content on the station. The most recent digital bid comes in the form of “listener-driven” radio. This is a strategy aimed at competing with services such as Pandora and last.fm. While it adds some interactivity with the listeners it still does not solve the problem that broadcast radio faces. CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT.

One popular station from my hometown of Philadelphia, is using this strategy of listener driven radio. Ironically, what they offer is the ability to choose from the past ten years of  playlist along with the current one. You still are stuck with the same content you hear on their over the air broadcast, which is the very thing they don’t seem to understand is driving the listeners to independent streaming sources.

I recently heard a conversation surrounding this issue and the consensus among many exploring the future of radio is stations may need to rethink the position of station Program Directors and begin to seek Content Creators.

What impact will this have on the world of Internet Radio? Time will tell.

Just as webcasters thought that they had their royalty obligations figured out, there comes news that the already complicated world of digital media royalties may well become more complicated. Last week, EMI, which in addition to being a record label is a significant music publishing company, has reportedly decided to withdraw portions of its publishing catalog from ASCAP – which had been licensing the public performance of these songs. The withdrawal from ASCAP applies only to “New Media” licensing. What is the impact? As of today, webcasters pay ASCAP, BMI and SESAC for the rights to play virtually the entire universe of “musical compositions” or “musical works” (the words and musics of the song).

By withdrawing from ASCAP, EMI will now license its musical compositions itself, adding one more place that webcasters will need to go to get all the rights necessary to play music on an Internet radio type of service. In addition to royalties paid for the musical composition, webcasters also pay SoundExchange for public performance rights to the sound recordings (the song as recorded by a particular singer or band) – and by paying this one organization, they get rights to perform all sound recordings legally released in the US. But any Internet radio operation needs both the musical composition (except for those compositions that have fallen into the public domain) and the sound recording performance rights cleared before they can legally play the music.

Click here for full article from Broadcast Law Blog

EMI, one of the big four record labels, has opted to not give ASCAP, digital licensing for its April Music catalog. The deal reported by PaidContent affects the digital licensing situation of about 200,000 songs. EMI has a second sizable portfolio, but it’s definitely taking back April Music as it ponders a new era of licensing for music that is increasingly streamed (audio and video) and stored in “the cloud.” It also comes as EMI is reportedly for sale, and the new business arrangement could make the company more valuable, since it won’t be paying ASCAP for its digital licensing services. EMI Music Publishing CEO Roger Faxon says “the digital world demands a new way of licensing rights in musical compositions.” No doubt he’s thinking of Google and Apple and other outfits looking for new ways to offer music to their users. ASCAP continues to represent the EMI catalogs in non-digital applications.

Source:

Thanks to MediaPost.com for this report which we trust will e of interest to our readers.

For the first time, a majority of all new mobile phones bought in the U.S. during the first quarter were smartphones — at 54%, according to new data from market research firm NPD Group. That follows on the heels of research from Nielsen this week indicating that 36% of U.S. mobile consumers own smartphones, up from 31% at the end of 2010.

Aided by the launch of the Verizon iPhone, Apple became the third-largest handset maker in the first quarter overall in the U.S., behind Samsung and LG. Apple claimed 14% of the market, compared to Samsung’s 23% and LG, 18%. Rounding out the top six manufacturers were HTC, Motorola and BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion.

Verizon, which began offering the iPhone 4 in February, said last week said that it sold 2.2 million units of the Apple device during the first quarter. Apple itself reported selling a whopping 18.7 million iPhones during the first three months of the year, more than double the year-earlier period. Both Apple and Verizon could see a further boost in sales from today’s release of the long-awaited white iPhone 4.

Although the article focuses upon the increase of smartphone sales, many Internet Broadcasters look to mobile devices to reach their listeners. As the technology continues to find it’s way into the hands of customers, broadcasters need to focus upon producing great content to secure their place in the market place.

Click here to read the full report:

We thought our readers would find this interesting.

What should SoundExchange do with money that it collects for the performance of sound recordings, when it does not know what sound recordings were played by a particular service?  As we’ve written many times on this blog, SoundExchange collects royalties from digital music services , including satellite radio, cable radio and webcasters, for the performance of sound recordings (i.e. a recording of a song by a particular artist).

It is charged with the obligation to distribute these royalties one-half to those who hold of the copyright to the sound recording and one-half to the artists who perform on those recordings.  However, SoundExchange, according to a filing recently made with the Copyright Royalty Board, does not always know which songs were played by a particular music service.  Thus, it has had difficulty distributing all of the money it collects – currently holding $28 Million in royalties from the period 2004 to 2009 that have not been distributed.  Why?  According to SoundExchange much of the problem is that not all services report what they played and how often, and other information that is submitted is sometimes inaccurate or otherwise does not adequately identify the music that was played.

To deal with this problem, SoundExchange has asked that the Copyright Royalty Board authorize it to use proxy information to distribute these funds from 2004-2009.  The CRB has asked for comments on that proposal.  Comments are due on May 19.

Read the full article here.