• by Ken Liebeskind , April 30, 2001

SurferNetwork, a Mt. Olive, NJ company that streams the broadcast of more than 160 radio stations, has signed on with MeasureCast, the Portland, OR firm that provides audience measurement reports for Internet radio. MeasureCast will provide third-party audience data for SurferNetwork stations, which it can report to potential advertisers.

"The primary value of the data is for purposes of advertising planning or buying," says Gordon Bridge, chairman/CEO of SurferNetwork. "It provides third party reporting on what's going on on our network. Ad sales teams will use it to go to the buyers and say 'Here's what we have.'"

SurferNetwork stations, like other Internet radio stations, are in the process of developing Internet only advertising. "Some have Internet only ads and some still broadcast their terrestrial signals, but all are on their way," Bridge says. "You'll be hearing new ads and eventually stations will have online only ads."

Bridge says working with MeasureCast will also help SurferNetwork deal with the AFTRA fee issue. Many stations have stopped online broadcasts because of the fees due to AFTRA union radio actors when the spots they record are played over the Internet. Bridge says the use of MeasureCast data will help the company sell spots that can replace the fee-based spots.

MeasureCast provides hour-to-hour reports of streaming radio listening by stations and also provides demographic information, identifying listeners by sex, region and age group.

MeasureCast claims to be the first company to offer third-party Internet radio audience reports, but Bill Piwonka, MeasureCast's VP of marketing, says Arbitron is now offering similar data. But he says Arbitron offers "less timely numbers without the demographic information we have."

Bridge says, "down the road we might use Arbitron, but MeasureCast is trying to do for online radio what Arbitron does for traditional radio."

Piwonka notes how the companies have to work together to boost Internet radio advertising. "We need to cooperate to do market development. The agencies need education and we're going to work together to keep the streaming broadcast industry growing."

- Ken Liebeskind may be reached at kenrunz@aol.com