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(12/17/2001) WABC New York Listeners Are Up In Arms That They Cannot Hear Their Favorite Station On The Web.
Why WABC in New York was not streaming its signal became a topic for discussion on the New York Radio message board recently. Listeners got into a discussion about the topic "Has WABC Dropped The Ball"?
Boyce resonded to the concerns of the listeners:
"Trust me, the ball is still in the air. While it may be getting batted around from person to person, it is still airborne.
"WABC created an on-air product that quickly became the most listened to audio source in the whole world on the Internet, as of one year ago. It is very frustrating to have to pull it off the Net and have trouble getting it back up again. I have no doubt that we will eventually resume streaming WABC, and that we will quickly become the most streamed audio source in the world shortly thereafter, and I really do symphatize with the fans we created around the country and the world that no longer can listen to us.
"WABC has a different set of problems than KGO or WLS. By the way, I tried to listen to KGO the other day and was rewarded with 20 minutes of dead air, so I don't think they've solved their problem either.
"WABC has two problems. One, our system is ENCO, and not Audio Vault (which KGO and WLS use.) We have to re-write the rules to make ENCO work. Second, we work for a company dedicated to 100% compliance. Not all companies are this diligent. Unless we can guarantee a stream that is 100% free from offending material, we can't get approval to stream the audio by our own company. Keep in mind that Disney makes more money at a juice stand at Disneyworld than we have ever made streaming WABC, so to them, it's not that important. And our company is VERY anti-piracy...for obvious reasons, so WABC can't be in a position of violating the rules. At present, I am not allowed to stream content that includes music or AFTRA commercials. I can strip out the commercials, but the music is a lot harder. Even the little :30 bumper songs that we use coming out of commercials are banned on the internet. The theme songs that we play to start each show are banned. There are negotiations to solve this issue, but we have not signed off on the agreements yet. We are close, but not there yet.
"And, because WABC was at one time streaming 300,000 hours a month into thousands of computers, we were running up a hefty tab for bandwidth. It costs this company a lot to stream....so we have to figure out a way to replace the commercials with steaming approved commercials that allow the company to recover the cost of the stream. Otherwise, as nice as it is to have loyal fans listening in Texas, we lose money doing it and get nothing out of it. No ratings, no profit....nothing. last time I checked, they still expect WABC to make money. Go figure."
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