Rob Greenlee, host of Web Talk, speaks with Dave Van Dyke, President of Bridge Ratings (BridgeRatings.com), about his company’s recent radio market research study on the changes occurring to radio broadcasting. Mr. Van Dyke also explains how important podcasting is in this competitive market.

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The study gathered research data about projected subscriber growth of satellite radio, Internet radio streaming and the projected availability of wireless Internet access. The current study data indicates satellite radio subscribers should reach 35 million by 2010. The study shows XM retaining its leading market share. Internet radio streaming continues to be the preference among Americans for supplemental audio entertainment. Internet radio will continue its growth as more users have access to broadband. When combining Internet radio data with the market penetration potential for wireless Internet, the dominance of Internet radio is much clearer. The other area of growth is in-car wireless Internet radio with its potential for use by the public, which is much greater than the growth projections for satellite radio.

Dave Van Dyke, President of Bridge Ratings has more than 25 years of senior management experience with industry leading companies such as CBS, Westinghouse, Viacom and Infinity. Prior to his general management posts at these companies, Dave spent the first half of his career as a program director and has been referred to as a “turnaround” expert who is particularly skillful at strategic positioning, research and marketing.

Bridge Ratings LLC provides on-going, immediate, reliable and affordable audience measurement services for radio. Bridge Ratings offers frequent measurement in markets of all sizes. Typical non-Bridge Ratings surveys are released long after the measurement period ends, making it impossible for program directors and sales managers to make the immediate evaluations and changes necessary to stay ahead of the competition. Bridge Ratings is the only provider of weekly and monthly radio audience tracking in the market today.

Resources:

Digital Audio Market Projections Research Study

This presentation is from the IT Conversations Web Talk series, hosted and produced by Rob Greenlee.

Google Ride Finder is very cool. You can track the real-time locations of taxi’s by provider on maps in 11 major cities in the USA. You can view taxi or shuttle locations in any of the following cities.

Baltimore, MD
Chicago, IL
Cleveland, OH
Dallas, TX
Houston, TX
Milwaukee, WI
New York, NY
Phoenix, AZ
San Jose, CA
St. Louis, MO
Washington, DC

While this is a classic Google Beta that is incomplete. It has a very high cool factor, but unless it works in a mobile device it has limited value. The other thing would be to label the availability of the taxi that may be coming upon your location and also enable you to request a pick-up. Check it out.

I believe that podcasters will find value in streaming the shows they are producing. It is clearly easier for a listener to just click on a link to listen then download to a portable player and the majority of advertisers are placing ads with streaming content.

Two weeks ago WebTalk started streaming the TechPodcasts Network in a live windows media server from a playlist that is being kept up to date by all the podcasters in the network via FTP. The stream has about 8 hours of rotating shows. We plan on inserting sponsor ads within the stream soon. Give it a listen, but be warned that some of the podcasters are still encoding podcasts at 128K. We are working on getting the average encoded mp3 down to 48 to 64K files for greater reach on the stream. It would be ideal if all of the podcasters would make files at about 48k. It is a project in motion. I think it is a first from a windows media server.

Guest: Dan Rayburn, VP of InfoToday - StreamingMedia.com

Topics Discussed:
- Podcasters discovering the power of streaming?
- Cell Phone Streaming
- RSS becoming New Swiss Army Knife
- Europe’s .eu domain coming
- Social-network search engine
- PC-Turnoff Week coming soon

Listen 58 min: Windows (stream) and MP3 (download)

WebTalk Radio for April 17, 2005: WebTalk Radio has guest co-host Mitch Ratcliffe, co-founder of Persuadio at MyDensity.com and blogger for RedHerring.com “The Now” Blog.

Show Topics: Google Launches Video Upload Program, IDG To Invest In 20+ Chinese Internet Companies In 2005, Did Major Media Underestimated Digital Revolution, Blog Launches P2P Indie Video Sales via Bit Torrent, Will RSS Show Anybody Money, TechPodcasts.com LIVE Stream and SuperVolcanos.

Listen 50 min: mp3 (17MB) and Windows (Stream)

WebTalk Radio for April 9, 2005: WebTalk Radio has guest co-host Mitch Ratcliffe, co-founder of Persuadio at MyDensity.com and blogger for RedHerring.com “The Now” Blog.

We discuss why big media corporations have not embraced P2P and Mark Cuban funds Grokster P2P legal Defense. The need for more legal uses of P2P, Orb Networks Goes FREE, Is Online Radio ripe for the Taking on the part of Terrestrial Radio Networks, Friendster.com gets a movie, Has Google been out Googled by Yahoo.

Listen 46 min: mp3 (16MB) and Windows (Stream)