Not so hot news for radio

Inside Radio is reporting the following this morning:

It’s official: Internet surpasses radio.
The internet is now the third largest ad-supported medium, behind television and print. Radio’s $100 million lead in 2007 evaporated as internet revenues grew 11% last year to $23.4 billion. That’s $3.9 billion more than radio.

Yikes. Of course, anyone reading the trades has seen this coming. Radio still gets a big draw of advertising. But the growth just hasn't been there, despite what all those takeover business plans said. That, and since anyone can start up a Web site, it is only bound to grow even more. Compare that to having to borrow hundreds of thousands just to acquire a small AM radio station or millions to acquire whole companies [BTW, there are a lot of deals out there].
But, earning money from the Web is much, much easier. There's just less of it, especially on the micro level. Even I'm earning money from the Internet: Amazon Kindle paid me 11 cents last quarter for downloads!
The key to the future will be how to gain consistent audience and monetize the Web long-term. Ideally, you want to do that without huge debts and as an individual owner-operator. That has yet to be figured out beyond the partisan bloggers and big corporate news sites though.

Googlecams capture UFOs!
Check this out: ["Google unearthly"].
It's probably the only net positive thing about all these cameras on everyone, everywhere. But wow, what a snapshot in time.