Hi,

It seems that many of the radio stations on the air are making their
contents available through streaming on the Internet, though it does
not seem to be the case for TV. I suspect there is some legal issue or
something but could you find out why?

The major problem is rights management.  Normally, television episodes
are sold to specific stations within a certain region.  That allows
the station to exhibit these episodes exclusively (for first run,
while re-runs are slightly different) where they can get paid through
advertising.  The problem, is the rights management via the internet. 
If some station in Wyoming is streaming to the web the newest CSI,
someone may not watch their local Fresno station but the online
version.  This would reduce the total number of viewers for Wyoming
futher reducing their revenues.  This is more so for global television
shows (World Series, World Cup, etc) where national rights have to be
managed.

Perhaps re-runs will be allowed (as we have seen via iTunes) soon.  In
the meantime, a lot of stations do stream, but only their local made
content.  have a look around.

webravi-ga

Hi,

thank you for the information.
Reading this, does it mean that there's no rights management in radio
like there is for TV? I'm saying this because some radio station also
seem to operate regionally, some stations about the same region as
regional TV stations.

Cheers
Akira

Since networks are currently putting TV content on the Web and
specialty channels such as Bloomberg.com are already running streaming
TV on the Web, I suspect it has more to do with a combination of
networks being far behind the curve on the technology and also waiting
for enough people to get broadband.

Syndication problems are certainly an aspect but I doubt it is the
controlling factor since you can already buy podcasts of news and some
selected programs such as desperate housewives.

Also, even with a fast connection it is difficult to get good full
screen video over the Web so the potential audience size is still
quite small.

It occurs to me that one of the differences between the TV business
model and that of radio is that radio is free to anyone with a
receiver, while in many sections TV is purchased via cable in many
sections of the country.

In essence the radio business model already draws all of its revenue
from advertisement while the cable TV business model assumes a revenue
stream from subscriptions as well.

Check out
http://www.theage.com.au/news/breaking/google-set-to-sell-tv-networks-programs/2006/01/06/1136387582106.html

Radio stations buy a license to broadcast content.  They then have a
rights license to play music (or content), almost anything, from the
RIAA of their local equivalent.  TV stations have a broadcast license
that allows them to broadcast their own content or paid content (from
distributors, etc).  They pay the content producers for limited rights
(# of airings, schedules, etc).  They cannot broadcast this type of
content online as they would most probably be in violation of the user
license for the paid content.

What we are currently seeing vis-a-vis google, itunes etc, are the
distrubutors (content creators) selling this online (as is their
rights) and not local broadcast stations.  The grainess, I suspect, is
revenue protection as people will still want to watch re-runs and dvd
collections in proper resolution.