From...

June 29, 1999
Web posted at: 12:07 p.m. EDT (1607 GMT)

by James Ledbetter

(IDG) -- Is talk radio the Web's next killer app? For months, major Web players have been snapping up Web radio properties like Broadcast.com and Spinner. The primary focus of such acquisitions and partnerships has been to transmit music. Increasingly, however, Net companies are becoming content providers for talk radio.

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About.com, the guided search engine formerly known as the Mining Company, is set to launch About Radio, a weekly talk show that will feature About's Internet guides. This past weekend, Microsoft's travel service, Expedia.com, was set to launch a one-hour, syndicated radio show in five major markets, offering features and travel tips. And the gay-and-lesbian site PlanetOut plans to launch a live talk-radio channel on its site soon.

Even Internet poster-boy Matt Drudge is getting into the talk-radio act. For the last year, Drudge has hosted a Sunday evening call-in show on New York's WABC Radio that is available live at Disney's Go.com.

Last week, published reports indicated that ABC had offered Drudge a national two-hour weekly program. (Drudge did not respond to interview requests, but he posted news stories about the offer on the Drudge Report.)

Some industry experts believe a natural affinity exists between the Web and talk radio. "Talk radio and the Web have two very important things in common," says Howard Kurtz, author of Hot Air: All Talk, All the Time, a book about talk radio published in 1997. "They're an alternative message-delivery system that appeals to folks who aren't necessarily wild about the mainstream media. And both have the key element of interactivity. You can talk back, whether it's through the phone or the modem."

Using the Web to transmit audio information is not a new phenomenon. CNET Radio has offered daily tech-news updates via an audio link on its site for several years. What is new is the specific integration of Web companies with the world of talk radio, where outrageous personalities and call-in exchanges blend news and entertainment. Robert Unmacht, publisher of the radio trade magazine M Street Journal, says that while the number of U.S. radio stations using the talk format has remained static over the past year, over the last decade, the number has grown from 300 stations to 1,100 stations.

The promotional power of talk radio is too great for Web executives to overlook. At About Radio, one goal is to increase exposure of the About.com subject guides. "We want to make them stars, and voice is an important element," says About.com chairman and CEO Scott Kurnit.

The About Radio program is hosted by Stewart Cheifet, longtime host of the public television show The Computer Chronicles. Using a San Francisco radio studio and streaming technology from Broadcast.com, Cheifet interviews About.com guides about news related to their fields. The show is broadcast live once a week with e-mail feedback and is available as an audio archive.

Kurnit says the guides are not paid to do the radio interviews, but they have an incentive to appear because they are paid by the amount of traffic their sites get. The eventual goal is to syndicate the program to real-world radio stations, although Kurnit acknowledges that he does not have broadcast partners at the moment.

Expedia Radio, by contrast, is going directly to talk-radio stations. The last week in June, talk stations in Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle and Chicago broadcast the Expedia program, hosted by two Seattle jockeys. The program will also be available on the Expedia Web site.

Kurnit argues that putting About's guides on the radio will provide a valuable new platform for advertisers, as well as help About.com differentiate itself from other portals.

"We say all the time to the other guys, 'Show us your people.' I don't think that Yahoo or Lycos could do this because they don't have the people," says Kurnit.

But are the Web and talk radio really ready for one another? Here's one indication: Every Sunday night when Drudge hosts his WABC program, he puts a notice on his site telling readers to listen in. Go.com accommodates them by dedicating 3,000 audio channels for listeners nationwide. Says one ABC source: "They always get blown out as soon as Drudge comes on."