Infinity announced KYOURadio.com today. People can submit archived shows (which are now being called Podcasts by the press) with the best, most interesting ones being broadcast on AM 1550 (in the Bay Area) and streamed online from their website. Infinity will insert ads in between the shows although the content producers won't yet be able to participate (rather they'll be doing it for fun or to promote their show). On the other hand, it's not an exclusive deal for the content producers and all of the licensing will be taken care of by Infinity. As the article mentions, Infinity acknowledges that they're not taking a huge risk since the station had not been doing well financially anyway. Still, it's a good, bold move that terrestrials like Infinity need to make to catch up. It's as if the New York Times devoted a page in their paper or website to articles submitted by their community (hint, hint).
They're outsourcing (or is it open-sourcing?) their programming to the masses (not unlike some other folks out there), which is a good way for them to identify talent. And they're challenging the folks out there who think radio sucks basically saying: "We hear your complaints; we're now going to give you a shot at it". I hear they've already gotten numerous submissions today and I bet they'll end up with some good shows, but I'm not sure that it'll be enough to increase that station's ratings - the esoteric and disparate nature of the shows may make it confusing to listeners (though having a program guide on their website would help). What they'll need is a system to rate the submissions once there are a lot of them or else their producers will spend all of their time wading through the chaff to find the wheat. Internet-based rating systems like GarageBand.com's could help on this front.
It's an interesting experiment and I'll be all ears to hear how it goes.
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