I saw an interesting statistic today. If a successful streaming effort were to yield 1000 listeners per hour at 14 songs per hour, the Sound Exchange royalty would total over $183,000 for one year at the new rate negotiated by the NAB. That number doesn’t include bandwidth fees.
I was criticized in comments about a press release that StreamAudio issued about a product they developed to stop stream hijacking Click Here. Stream hijacking is rampant on the internet. It means a third party grabs your stream, repackages it, and offers it to a visitor on their own website. In the article, I was quoted about the fact that in some instances when Morris turned on the stream protection filtering, our streaming costs dropped in half.
Most of the access to the hijacked streams were from zip codes (around the world) that mean nothing to a local radio station or local advertiser. The sales staff could boast the numbers, but the advertiser would have been being misled. It was also costing the company extra money in royalty and bandwidth fees to serve an audience we (honestly) didn’t care to serve. I know that sounds harsh, but a station’s stream should be meant to supplement the on air product by helping in weak signal areas, in office buildings and give an alternate audience for local advertisers to showcase their products. I couldn’t look an advertiser in the eye and tell him that only half of the page views that I’ve reported to him for his ad went to zip codes that are outside his (and the station’s) service area to people who would never use his product.
It’s a prudent and responsible practice to manage costs effectively for the station owner. Moreover, it’s of ethical importance to make sure the advertiser gets the value for which they actually paid.
I was criticized in comments about a press release that StreamAudio issued about a product they developed to stop stream hijacking Click Here. Stream hijacking is rampant on the internet. It means a third party grabs your stream, repackages it, and offers it to a visitor on their own website. In the article, I was quoted about the fact that in some instances when Morris turned on the stream protection filtering, our streaming costs dropped in half.
Most of the access to the hijacked streams were from zip codes (around the world) that mean nothing to a local radio station or local advertiser. The sales staff could boast the numbers, but the advertiser would have been being misled. It was also costing the company extra money in royalty and bandwidth fees to serve an audience we (honestly) didn’t care to serve. I know that sounds harsh, but a station’s stream should be meant to supplement the on air product by helping in weak signal areas, in office buildings and give an alternate audience for local advertisers to showcase their products. I couldn’t look an advertiser in the eye and tell him that only half of the page views that I’ve reported to him for his ad went to zip codes that are outside his (and the station’s) service area to people who would never use his product.
It’s a prudent and responsible practice to manage costs effectively for the station owner. Moreover, it’s of ethical importance to make sure the advertiser gets the value for which they actually paid.