Well, judging from the number of in-house promos that run in the Live365 ad slots, I think I can figure out why the company is instituting a cap and a per-listener charge for the number of people who can tune into your station and others for free. After all, the servers and streaming audio facilities do cost money to run.



Frankly, I think the content is worth paying $4/month for, just as I willingly plunk down that much each month for my favorite monthly magazine, The Atlantic. (I'll have to wait 'til payday to become a preferred member, though.) It might take some time for people to get used to the idea of paying for radio -- over-the-air, satellite or Internet -- the way they pay for cable TV.



As with cable, content will be key. People shell out for HBO because HBO offers programming that goes beyond what they can get on broadcast television, with no commercials to boot. I -- and evidently hundreds of others daily -- think that what Fresh & Smooth offers goes beyond what they can get from their local Clear Channel outlet, with or without commercials. But are there enough of them willing to pay for it without commercials to make it self-sustaining? Or enough who are willing to pay for the entire menu of thousands of Live365 stations (as they pay for XM or Sirius) to make the whole enterprise self-sustaining? Apparently, Live365 is about to conduct an experiment on this very question. I'll be on board; will you?



If not, then I fear that what will happen will be similar to what cable offers today: content providers will have to pay in order to have access to the audience, which in turn pays for the privilege of getting the content *and* the commercials.