For those who have Launchcast stations

[hummingwolf]

If you have been using Launchcast, listen to your personalized Launchcast station now while you still can, because customized Launchcast stations will no longer be available after mid-February 2009. According to one of the folks at Yahoo,

Earlier this morning [December 3], we announced that Yahoo! Music will be partnering with CBS Radio to offer a jointly operated radio service.

This will replace our existing service by moving radio to the CBS Interactive platform, with CBS providing the content, radio player and advertising. Our content team will continue to create our wide array of 150 radio stations using the CBS programming tools.

Though we're announcing this today, the first release will take place on Feb. 12th, 2009, with subsequent releases afterwards to add features and functionality.

Changes: All of the "LAUNCHcast powered by CBS" stations will work on Firefox and Macs as well as Internet Explorer. All of the programmed stations--including ones which are now only available to paying Launchcast Plus users--will be free. There will still be artist fan stations, which play music related to the selected artist (based on fans' ratings, I'm guessing, since ratings will still be around). People who are currently subscribed to Launchcast Plus beyond February 12 will be getting refunds, since the paid service is being phased out.

But in addition to the good stuff, there is the sad news that "our beloved customized LAUNCHcast Radio will be going away. We spent a long time trying to figure out how to get this to work with the CBS platform, but it unfortunately wasn't technically feasible. I understand that many of you have invested long hours in building your radio station, but the fact is that due to the increasing rates, we can't continue to offer this service.... Yahoo! has never made a lot of money from Internet radio: it's generally been a consumer feature and not a big profit center. However, we really couldn't afford to pay the new rates, so we therefore faced a choice: either cripple the product to greatly reduce listenership, or find a partner with strengths in radio and different economics."

Launchcast Transition FAQ.

Comments

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

that's a shame. CBS took over AOL radio, and it's loaded with annoying ads now, though the music's still good. a while back, i heard from verizon that my "cd-quality" launchcast station was devolving to low-quality. guess that was in preparation for this. :(

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's sad. I know the record companies never let Yahoo profit all that much from Launchcast--in fact, Yahoo bought Launch at a time when Launch's owners were fighting legal battles with several of the big labels. I wish the record companies would just realize that set-ups like Launchcast where people can hear a variety of music they might not hear elsewhere is a good thing for sales. Then again, the last three CDs I bought were by someone on a small independent music label, so maybe my listening habits aren't helpful enough for the majors!