A Day Of Radio Silence?
The online radio streams of local stalwart KCRW are noticeably silent today in protest of online royalty fees. A cursory glance at local streamers KXLU and Killradio finds both of them dark as well.
Or does it? The latter is actually streaming silence, unless I’m doing something wrong — nice in a Brian Eno sort of way. KXLU has opted to simply temporarily kill the feed, while KCRW itself is looping General Manager Ruth Seymour’s blatherings to various special guests with mildly protestive candor in a pre-recorded, indigestible piece of digital pap.
Suddenly I’m dubious that any online station is truly dark today. Pulling up a few of my favorite online broadcasters (novaplanet, KEXP, little radio and WFMU, in no particular order), I am, to put it bluntly, streaming music out of my ass senza hiccups or overly lengthy interruptions, give or take the occasional “save internet radio” plug in between songs. Even Indie 103 is rocking out per usual but, then, Clear Channel is not your average beast. Hell those guys probably pushed for the royalty fees in the first place.
Are any readers out there actually feeling the searing pain of online radio silence today? What do you normally listen to at work? Maybe online radio’s already dead in the water. Myself, I use a music subscription service these days. Reason: NO DJ WILL EVER BE AS GOOD AS ME, EVER.
Dude, Clear Channel does not own Indie 103.1. An FCC ruling in ‘05 barred Clear Channel from having any business interest in the station due to regional ownership limits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDLD
Thanks Pete. You were on a roll this morning. Did not know Entravision is the sole owner @ this point.
But I still don’t trust wikipedia. (Or clear channel.)