Midwest TV Variety Hits “100.7 Jack-FM” KFMB-FM San Diego has joined the growing list of stations placing a regional geoblock on their online stream.
Whereas Mount Wilson FM’s “Go Country 105” KKGO-FM Los Angeles can be heard anywhere in the State of California, KFMB is limiting its streaming to IP’s in the San Diego market. The move comes as more stations bring their on-air and online commercial content together to avoid being listed separately in the ratings. A new Arbitron policy went into effect with the July PPM monthly that combines the data as long as both the on-air and streaming content are a 100% simulcast in the home market of the station. As stations won’t make money on out of market listeners some no longer see the need to make their streams available outside their home market.
Midwest is going a step further. Starting in September podcasts for the Dave, Shelley and Chainsaw morning show will reside under a paywall. While some pureplay podcasters such as Steve Dahl charge for their programming, KFMB will be the first commercial radio station to place its free on-air product under a paywall for their archived programming.
Sister News/Talk 760 KFMB’s streaming is unaffected by the changes at KFMB-FM.