The document discusses the history and future of the music and radio industries online. It provides context on the major players in the recorded music and radio industries historically and today. It then discusses Mixcloud, an online platform for radio shows, podcasts, and DJ mixes. Finally, it outlines some key trends for the future of online music and radio, including a shift to more social, democratic, and personalized experiences, and challenges around business models, new devices and formats, and determining what types of content consumers will pay for.
The first audio transmission occurred on Xmas Eve in 1906 Guglielmo Marconi , who equipped ships with life-saving wireless communications, conducted a reported transatlantic radio communications experiments in 1901 and established the first commercial transatlantic radio service in 1907 Nikola Tesla , who developed means to reliably produce radio frequency currents, publicly demonstrated the principles of radio, and transmitted long distance signals. In 1943 the US Supreme Court upheld Tesla's patent number U.S. Patent 645,576 [2] . The reason it is not obvious who invented radio is that the technology is a product of many different discoveries and developments. Radio Caroline is an English radio station that originally commenced transmissions in 60s as an offshore radio station broadcasting from a ship anchored in international waters off the coast of South East England . Originally unlicensed by any government, for the majority of its early life, it was labelled as a pirate radio station. While Mexico issued radio station XERF with a license to broadcast, the power of its 250 kW transmitter was far greater than the maximum of 50 kW authorized for commercial use by the government of the United States of America. Consequently, XERF and many other radio stations in Mexico, which sold their broadcasting time to sponsors of English-language commercial and religious programs, were labelled as " border blasters ", but not "pirate radio stations", even though the content of many of their programs were in violation of US law. Predecessors to XERF, for instance, had originally broadcast in Kansas , advocating " goat-gland surgery " for improved masculinity, but moved to Mexico to evade US laws about advertising medical treatments, particularly unproven ones.
GROWTH - US Internet radio = 27% annual growth since 2000 - New platforms: 6m of Pandora’s 27m subscribers are on mobile, in the last 2 years only REVENUE - 1% of 2010 revenue = $35m from US only advertising - Pandora ad revenue up 80% from 2008, total revenue last year = $20m, predicting profitability this year ( 20% revenue already from iPhone )
Wired article: Domain registration: $129 -> $10 - Streaming video bandwidth costs (per GB) $193 --> 2.8 cents - Web storage (per GB) over $1000 --> 15 cents
What is Mixcloud? Mixcloud is a platform for on-demand radio shows, Podcasts and DJ mix sets – a “Youtube for radio”. The site provides hosting for all forms of content from talk shows through to music and comedy. The aim is to connect these “Cloudcasts” with listeners and make radio more social, democratic and personal. Why is Mixcloud? The was born based on the insight that radio content on the internet today is incredibly fragmented.
We were radio presenters at University of Cambridge (“The Get Down show”)
And 3 of the core team are breakdancers
Starting company about 14 months ago, funding from UK government (TSB) and working with Queen Mary university Launched 21 st September, just over 2 months ago, press in BBC, Guardian, Telegraph, etc Great feedback already, working with household names like BBC, Roundhouse, Judge Jules The first legal platform for independent radio shows containing music, although Streaming rate challenges for music content as the rates are still more than traditional radio Currently music oriented due to founders backgrounds, looking to expand breadth of content
Important trends happening elsewhere but not really at the intersection of music+radio+internet not necessarily ground breaking, but at heart of Mixcloud (and many other websites) and increasingly important
Self serve display for community site. Works well for us
CONSUMER TRENDS From destination to distribution From search to recommendation ADVERTISING INDUSTRY Traditional radio ad spend moving online Online audio ad market growing - e.g. Google, TargetSpot, Spotify RADIO INDUSTRY Challenge: Are consumers willing to pay for content? What type format: subscription/micropayments? New devices = increased access to wifi Hyper local??