You go out, hire an actor to play a singing fish in your ad, and hit the airwaves. Your ad won't just be heard in Butte. People who had never thought of partaking of the simple pleasures of angling will be clamoring for your wares. You could start a mail-order sideline, shipping crickets, packed in dry ice, to 70 countries. You're suddenly an international cricket tycoon, and you weren't even trying.
Life seems good.
Until the actor who played the singing walleye in your ad knocks on your door, wanting more money because the ad he was in was on the Internet. To tell you the truth, this kind of scenario hadn't even occurred to me until a few days ago, when some of my favorite radio stations stopped streaming over the Internet. It turns out that the contract actors sign when they do a commercial guarantees higher royalties if that commercial is used on the Internet. Naturally advertisers don't want to pay the higher rates unless they specifically intend to advertise online. I would imagine that radio stations aren't particularly eager to pick up this tab, either.