Mark Lassoff

CBS/AOL Partnership: Great News for Internet Radio

Great news? Are you kidding...

AOL and CBS recently announced a deal that would give AOL the rights to rebroadcast CBS's terrestrial radio stations through its online radio network. While the deal does greatly increase the number of stations available to the AOL radio listening audience, I'm not entirely sure that this move really benefits the listeners. Have listeners been clamoring for more access to the same 10 radio formats-- and playlists -- that have been available in every market for years? Probably not.

The highly touted new AOL player has about 15 different BOB/JACK style options which are stations that feature an iPod-like format. Less talk, personality, localization, and more music. The same music. Over and over and over again. Does having 15 of these stations available online somehow benefit the listener?

AOL is also featuring the inclusion of WFAN-- New York's flagship sports station on its web site. That would be a really exciting development if the internet broadcast of WFAN wasn't available already on The Fan's own web site.

Continuing to propagate different, localized versions of the same programming isn't really additional user choice-- it's additional corporate radio hegemony.

Want to see what radio will look like 10 years from now? The internet will allow advertisers to become programming producers. Why sponsor someone else's program when you can brand and carry an entire line of programming without competitive marketing messages. It's time for the CBS radios and Clear Channel's of the world to realize that their time is over.