Europe now has more webcasters than the US. Does the RIAA think this is good?

For the first time in history, international streaming channels now outnumber channels from the US.

BRS Media's Web-Radio, the leading portal for "Tuning In" radio on the internet, released their latest statistics this week at The NAB Radio Show in the US. The numbers indicate that the current copyright crisis is having a direct impact on the number of stations broadcasting online. And, for the first time since BRS Media began tracking internet radio back in 1995, US based stations now represent less then fifty percent of the stations webcasting online.

In the last year alone the number of radio webcasters has declined by thirty one per cent, with US stations accounting for the majority of this steep decline. Based on the high copyright fees supported by the RIAA, well over one thousand US stations and internet-only webcasters quit streaming online.

The current number of webcasting channels on the net is 3940, significantly lower than the all time high of 5710 stations from last year. Prior to this year US based stations represented nearly 60 per cent of all stations webcasting. Now international stations account for well over 50 per cent of all stations webcasting online.

Some of the major US players have just given up. Having chased the dotcom dream for two years - and having spent tens of millions of dollars in the process- the Board of Directors of the LMiV (Local Media Internet Venture) has voted to dissolve the venture by the end of September. The venture, established in Fall 2000 by broadcast groups Bonneville, Corus, Emmis, Entercom, and Jefferson-Pilot, aggregated and produced web content for its member stations' sites. It was launched with commitments of USD37m (E37.7m) in funding from the founding partners and had developed roughly 60 websites for member stations each with streaming audio....