Company Helps Radio Stations Leap From the Airwaves to the Internet

A year and a half ago, John Brier approached local radio station WJBQ with an offer to expand its audience from Maine to the entire world.

Brier would relay, for free, its Top 40 programming over the Internet. In return, the station would award him an exclusive contract for its online broadcasts and provide air time to promote their availability.

A few days later, Brier made the same pitch to another Portland station, WHOM, which also accepted. From there, he hired an assistant, acquired a broadcast directory and a fax machine, and started contacting stations nationwide.

“We had 100 contracts within a month,” said Brier, a former nightclub manager who was then overseeing a community policing program at the University of Maine at Augusta. He also was venturing into e-commerce, selling compact discs and other merchandise over the Internet.

His privately held company, BroadcastAmerica.com, now has contracts to stream more than 500 radio stations through its Web site, https://www.broadcastamerica.com. Its stable of programming includes more than 60 television stations and a handful of syndicates, including Dick Clark’s United Stations Radio Network, One-On-One Sports and Talk Radio Network.

Most recently, the company signed up three stations in Germany and landed contracts for international programming that includes popular European soccer games.

“What we are building here is a truly global online broadcasting network,” Brier said.

His initial goal has been to line up exclusive online rights from established broadcasters, enabling him to build a base for a not-so-distant future when listeners and viewers tune in their favorite stations by clicking on their personal computer, Palm Pilot or wireless device.

“The radio as we know it may become obsolete,” he said. “The certainty is that the Internet will become another form of broadcasting, which will completely alter the way people access their favorite content.”

While others may not go that far, broadcasters are certainly factoring the Internet in their plans.

“There’s a tremendous opportunity for radio and TV broadcasters on the Internet. It’s another way for their audience to receive their product,” said Jeff Bobeck, spokesman for the National Assn. of Broadcasters.

Although some broadcasters have signed on with companies like BroadcastAmerica.com and its principal rival Broadcast.com, which is part of Yahoo!, many stations have opted to stream their signals on their own over the Internet. Others are still weighing what to do.

“It’s whatever is right for that broadcaster,” Bobeck said.

WJBQ was exploring the idea of going online when Brier came to them with his offer in December 1998. To Tim Moore, the operations manager, the decision was easy.

“Stations go to great expense to increase their coverage just a few miles,” with antenna upgrades and more powerful transmitters, he reasoned. “This was a chance to go in one fell swoop from regional to worldwide.”

Now, the Portland station gets song requests via e-mail from listeners from as far away as Pakistan and Indonesia. Moore said online access also provides summer visitors and students away at college with a year-round link to the Portland area.

Like other Internet start-ups, BroadcastAmerica.com has focused on expanding the number of visitors to its Web site. Brier said growth has averaged at least 30% a month.

“We started out with 13 in our first month, and now we’ve surpassed 4 million,” he said, referring to the April figures. He also touts the site’s “stickiness,” noting that monthly visitors stay at the site for an average of 18 minutes.

Brier said the site has managed to attract so much attention without having to spend large sums on promotion. He said BroadcastAmerica.com has held its total spending to less than $6 million to date.

While the company hopes to become profitable by 2002, the top priority is extending its global reach. There are already about 200 domain names within the BroadcastAmerica.com umbrella, ranging from BroadcastEurope.com and BroadcastAsia.com to BroadcastSweden.com and BroadcastJapan.com.

Brief said most of the company’s revenue will come from various forms of advertising, including ads aired when listeners access a station on the Web site. Other sources include revenue-sharing deals involving wireless and hotel room distribution.

To promote brand identity, BroadcastAmerica.com has signed entertainer Wayne Newton to become its most visible spokesman. Brier envisions Newton projecting the image of his company, just as actor William Shatner has for Priceline.com.

While the recent volatility in the stock market has sent many dot-com stocks tumbling, Brier said he’s not concerned, because he believes BroadcastAmerica.com has plenty of options to finance its growth. It could go public, it could be acquired by another company or it could continue to remain private and independent, he said.

“We are an Internet company, but we’re not a pure Internet company. What we’re doing is using the Internet as a form of broadcasting,” he said.