Add to that conundrum the cost of streaming a station on the Web, which can reach into five figures to do in-house, and it's a wonder any station bothers to stream online. Infinity Broadcasting - have decided to wait on streaming until a revenue model emerges to support it. The wait may be over. Two startups, HiWire and Lightningcast, now offer a way for stations to delete the local ads from a live broadcast and simultaneously replace them with ads targeted at listeners based on data the listeners have voluntarily provided. That means a San Francisco resident listening to an Albany station online would hear San Francisco ads, while an Albany listener would still hear Albany ads.
Some people still think it's a problem.
Both startups claim to have solved the latency problem, which is music to investors' ears. HiWire, formerly known as RocketRadio, has its own player with connections to 3,000 stations around the world and a search engine to help you find streaming audio by station or style. When you download the player you can opt to tell HiWire information about yourself - age and gender, for example. If the station you tune in has signed on with HiWire, the information you've provided will be used to target the ads you hear. So far none of the traditional radio broadcasters available on HiWire has signed up for the company's targeted ad insertion service, although HiWire says that should soon change.