San Diego Most Wired For Internet Radio (September 30, 2004)

Last spring, Nielsen/NetRatings and comScore Networks has reported that San Diego is the most wired area in the country in terms of the percentage of Web surfers who use high-speed (broadband, DSL, Verizon, Ricochet, etc.) Internat versus the old 56k dial-up connections to the Internet.

What is it about San Diego, land of sun, surf and sand, that translates to a monthly financial commitment of between $30 and $50 to spend time mainly indoors in front of a computer? To get self-educated on relevant new music the local stations are not programming.

Why is San Diego the #1 place to get self-educated? With high-speed Internet, you can listen to broadband radio staitons from other cities in CD form featuring music your local stations are not playing on their playlists such as dance music heard on energyarizonafm.com, broadcasting on 92.7 and 101.1 in Phoenix, Arizona. You can listen to songs and artists on the stations heard on the Internet that you would not learn otherwise by listening to the San Diego radio stations only. With high-speed Internet, you can listen to Internet radio with few dropouts and congestive stream failures that dial-up users currently endure, thereby, giving the music fan a better listening experience.

With Clear Channel running 12 stations that sound basically alike, with many unique sounds not getting any airplay, the locals are wiring up for high-speed Internet to not only listen to streaming audio, but to also download music mp3 and even WAV files from the Internet (on both pay and illegitimate servers) to get their education in learning what relevant new music interests fans who enjoy genres such as the aforementioned dance, plus folk, comedy, alternative country, modern new wave, anime cartoon themes, broadway soundtracks, anything that they are interested in learning more about, and they're buying music online based on what they've learned from the streaming and download services.

Among those who don't have high-speed Internet, or even dial-up, most people learn about new music the old-fashioned way: by listening to the radio, which does a poor job of discovering exciting and fun music for the fans to enjoy. Instead, those who rely on radio for their music education often shop at Wal-Mart, Tower, and other record stores to buy monotonous rap, chick pop, teen alternative, and hip hop music, which is all Channel 933, Star, Z90, and My 94.1 ever plays.

Among those who have an Internet connection, and are regular listeners of out-of-town broadcasters or Internet-only stations, they're more likely to Google search for the songs they want to buy online, instead of stepping into a record store that is unlikely to have what the fan wants to buy.

San Diego is ranked #1 with 69.6 paying for high-speed connections, followed by Phoenix (68.4 percent); Detroit (67 percent); New York (66.8 percent); Sacramento (64.9 percent); Orlando (64.7 percent); Seattle and San Francisco (each 63 percent); Los Angeles (61.6 percent); and Boston (61.4 percent).

Last year, San Diego was #8 with 49.3 percent, and Boston was #1 with 59.2 percent.

Nationally, Nielsen//NetRatings said, 51 percent of Americans who are online use broadband. The year 2004 is the first year that broadband has passed dial-up.

The last 11 years I've been on the Internet have changed how I acquire music. I used to tape the songs off the radio, mostly because, in 1994, no radio station was yet broadcasting on the Internet, and CDs were expensive for just the 1-2 songs that were any good. With corporate radio taking over San Diego, and the music that I enjoyed such as dance synth pop and comedy disappearring from the airwaves, I have taken matters into my own hands and purchased the kind of music on CD that I want to hear and listen to it on my MP3 car radio so I don't have to listen through the rap, chick, grunge, and wimp pop crap just to hear the songs I like to hear on the MP3s. I regularily listen to a half-dozen favorite radio stations, some Internet-based only, meaning, they don't have a radio frequency to simulcast it from, and learn about all kinds of music that nobody is playing in town such as the kind you can hear on comedy and fun radio, dfsxradio.com, where classic and new novelty and fun music lives, the kind that the broadcasters used to play on the radio.

The problem is that with all the music I bought that radio doesn't play anymore, the time I spent listening to it has eaten its way into the time I used to spend listening to FM radio, down to about an hour a day, with the rest split between, in my car, listening to MP3s and AM talk radio such as Roger Hedgecock. I'm very much an American Idiot as far as what songs are currently playing on this week's Billbored music chart as I don't have a clue what any of the songs I've seen on the chart sound like.

I'll put the blame on the local stations that scared me away from listening to them when they keep on insisting that I want to listen to shit such as chick pop, grunge, corporate rap, and sleepy ballads instead of dance and fun synth rock songs that were so cool in the 1980s.

Radio may be popular among the folks who don't have Internet, but with Intenet becoming cheaper, with a target $19.99 a month for broadband on the way, it won't be long until those who are sick of the homogenous playlists on corporate radio will pay for broadband just to listen to music that is fresh and relevant to their musical preferences, eschewing local radio altogether and getting their primary music education via the Internet instead of via KIIS-FM.

As for dial-up, expect that to become a niche service just for e-mail as 56k is too slow for today's downloading and streaming music demands, or disappear altogether.