Robertson Named iHM Seattle Sales SVP

5-4-15
iHeartMedia Seattle has announced the promotion of Russell Robertson to senior vice president of sales for the company's seven-station cluster. He most recently had been serving as GSM for iHM's San Diego cluster, and has been with the company since 2001. Robertson replaces Katerina Perez, who exits the company.

iHeartMedia Seattle Market President Kent Haehl said: "Russell brings a long and successful track record of using iHeartMedia assets to build solutions for clients that deliver long-term results. His leadership with both music and sports programming will be an outstanding addition to an already strong team."
EVP of Operations for iHeartMedia Hartley Adkins added: "Seattle is one of the most unique markets in America. The digital prowess here requires a leader with high intellect and the ability to deliver through digital, social, and broadcast. Russell excels in each aspect. Certain leaders inspire and draw the best out of all those around them, and Russell brings that rare quality due north to the iHeartMedia Seattle cluster and enhances our competitive edge in the market."

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Robertson Launches UberStations

6-20-13

Michael Robertson has launched a new online service called UberStations that is similar to the TuneIn business model. Robertson says it's a better way to listen to radio. "Radio is an amazing library of audio, but without a guide it has been a black box with only a tiny peephole for listeners to peer into. UberStations is a new way to listen to Net radio stations and, since most AM/FM stations now broadcast online, it's a new way to experience AM/FM."

One cool feature allows users to select a song or show to listen to, then a "recommendation engine" searches music and shows playing on other AM/FM stations. Up to 20 other stations which may be of interest are displayed along with what is current on those stations. Music listeners can request an unlimited number of recommendations until they find something of interest to listen to. Those selecting a sports, politics, or public radio show will see other related talk shows on at that time they can listen to. Robertson says, "There's a comprehensive guide to radio showing listeners what's playing across the entire radio spectrum. An intuitive player displays and plays every station with a single click. Finally a recommendation engine steers people to music or shows of interest."

Robertson says his product has three industry innovations:
1) See in real-time what's playing on thousands of stations to identify what's of most interest.
2) Jump between thousands of stations in one uniform Web browser experience.
3) Recommendation engine scans 1000s of AM/FM stations directing listeners to interesting music and talk.

The current Web-based service is good for desktop and tablets. A phone app is in the works.

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Robertson Will Not Be Bullied

As expected, broadcasters are beginning to challenge Michael Robertson's new invention, DAR.fm. The technology he's created allows consumers to set an online recorder to a specific radio station, record a show on that station, and go back to listen to that show on an online player any time they'd like, free of charge. Robertson calls it radio's version of TV's DVR. Radio calls it stealing. Shows like Rush Limbaugh, NPR and Phil Hendrie consistently rank in the top 5, in terms of number of people recording their shows. One of the problems some companies and specific broadcasters have with this consumer-friendly service is that they've created businesses from their on-demand audio. Fans of Limbaugh, Hendrie, Beck and others have to pay a fee to be able to listen whenever they want. With DAR.fm, everything is free again. Whether or not this is totally legal will, most likely be determined in court. Univision is the first broadcaster to take steps to put an end to what Robertson's created. But he's hardly backing down. 

DAR.fm has received a Cease and Desist from Univision who is alleging that time shifting radio is a copyright infringement. Robertson told Radio Ink, "Univision's letter is typical copyright maximalist approach. I thought the "if you do downloads your opening the door to infringement" sentiment died a few years back but I guess not. I hope others in radio are more progressive than Univision." Univision is not alone. They just happen to be the first comapny to make a move on Robertson. He says Univision's knee jerk reaction seems to be carrying on the longstanding media company tradition of making legal threats against every new technology. "Just as the DVR has energized the TV business DAR.fm can do the same for radio making it available at a convenient time and device for consumers. TV viewing is up 40% over the last decade since the DVR while radio listening is down."

Clear Channel, which owns Premiere Radio Networks, would probably consider itself progressive, is also expressing concern over Robertson's service. The following statement was sent to Radio Ink regarding DAR.fm. ?Clear Channel Radio does not participate with or allow radio content aggregators to use or promote Clear Channel stations and programming, including content provided by Premiere Networks.? There might be an army of attorney's working on this topic for that company.

Robertson says he is still devising a formal response. "At one level it's good to know that our service is meaningful enough that people even care to complain about it. One can examine my track record to understand that I'm the kind of guy who stands up to media companies that believe every digital service is infringing. I just prevailed in a multi-year battle with EMI over the right to operate a personal cloud music service without a license."
The law is clear that cloud recording services are not infringing and don't require a license. I encourage you to read the Cartoon Network case.

Robertson says that while recording broadcasted material may be new to radio, it's not new to society. "Nearly 50% of US households have a DVR which records broadcasts. Of course every recording has video AND audio, but if they want to record audio only they can do that to by recording from a music channel. Similarly, internet users can capture online articles for later viewing using popular services like Readitlater and Instapaper."

Robertson also says he takes exception to the claim that by allowing users to download recordings to PCs, iPhones, iPads and Android that is "opening the door for users to engage in copyright infringement". "All DAR.fm recordings are stored in password protected storage. It's true users can setup automatic downloading which makes listening offline on any device easy, but that's not "opening the door" for copyright infringement anymore than when Amazon or iTunes allows people to download songs or Instapaper or ReaditLater let people download articles."

What do you think? Have you ever used the service? Is this fair? Is this legal? Send feeedback directly to edryan@radioink.com or leave your comments below.

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Robertson: "Radio Should Pay To Have FM Chips Installed"

MP3.com founder Michael Robertson has a suggestion for the NAB. Robertson says the NAB should ditch the Al Queda angle and pay the cell phone companies $1.00 for every phone that rolls off the assembly line with an FM radio chip in it. Robertson believes money talks and the NAB should give up the community safety angle. "Go with the greenbacks." When told of Robertson's suggestion Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan said "I'm open to any ideas, but it's really interesting that most new phones already have the chip installed but not activated. I'm told that globally, it's hard to find chipsets that don't have FM in them." Smulyan has been one of many radio executives pushing to get the FM chips installed in cell phones. But Robertson has more to say.

Robertson says the Internet radio model will not work. "Royalties for Internet radio makes it impossible to be profitable and anyone who says they are making money is fudging the numbers." As an example Robertson pointed out that the fees for Pandora go up 9% every year with their "royalty discount" ending in 2015. And that's the big unknown for companies like Pandora. What happens in 2015 and will they be generating enough revenue and profit to make the business viable over the long run. It's one thing to provide a free service that everyone loves. It's quite another to be a public company, required to generate profits to satisfy investors. 

Robertson has launched a new service called Dar.fm. The service allows users to record their favorite radio stations or radio shows for playback at another time. Robertson created MP3.com and then sold it for $400 million.

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