adio Tunes In To the Internet and home pages (both fan and ree- ‘ord-company sites). News stations transcripts, around-town guides and news-an- cchor bios. With so many area sta- tions already eaught in the "Net, those that aren’t are testing the waves: Seeing rival WCBS-AM out the gate, 1010 WINS vice president / general manager Seott res, “We'resigninga perhighway. road. tions have thei | By Frank Lovece 'T WAS JUST meant to be cheekily ironie, but the Bug- gles’ dawn-of MTV hit Killed the Radio Star” was taken ‘as prophetic at the time. In retro- speet, the reports of radio's de- mise were highly exaggerated and, our lesson learned, no one's scouting forundertakers now that ‘90s eyberculture has oversha- dowed ’80s cable culture. We've {got radio on the information su- Sort of. Actually, for now, radio isjust among the billboards on the Like nearly every other corpo- rate and government entity, in cluding the CIA and the Kremlin (inbjoke), more than 900 U.S. sta own Web "School in Monterey, W. Va., to Z- 100, WCBS ‘Newsradio 88, and other New York metropolitan owerhouses. Typical music-sta- tion sites include concert and weekend-entertainment sched- ules, biographies of DJs, contests and links to artist discographies offer headlines, ‘Video fr no money in the "Net. primarily — promotion. “Clearly. Yes agrees WBAB sonal appearances, says, ig Kids on Computers Brit Richard Bran- Group — whose 200 le an airline, movie ores, radio broadcast iim and television post-production — is ‘8 most astutely run sold Virgin Interac- erin 1994, he rectly with his for- rorld-lass publisher of ented games. But mention of getting out ged his focus from fueled player to family sd children's “edu ested a chunk of his enture, Virgin sand chose American n Turpin (Stanford er science, Harvard ll Street to create mn CD-ROMs are being this year. sthe way to falve Square.” kkids with computers isto give them a broadeast-quality animated television show experience. Demos of Virgin ‘Sound and Vision’s full-screen animated adventures resemble current Satur- ‘day morning eartoons, a style Turpin calls “mid-Pacifie” ("it works equally well in Asia and the US.”. His company, says Turpin, is a “global partner” of “Peanut” creator Charles M. Schulz in the produetion of “entertainment programing that has ‘educational levels.” The hybrid idsages 408 feature the original character voices arid animation virtually indistinguishable from video. In “Get Ready for School, Charlie Brown,” the initial release, Charlie — among several duties — teaches kids'1,000 words, while Snoopy, in one of sever: games, plays the Red Baron. Due in June i "Snoopy" Campfire Stories.” With Scientific American magazine, Turpin is producing a 3-D reference series, “One Small tended to hook kid How come? The benefit for high-school and college radio sta tions is an edueational lab. Yet for commercial stations, there's little ‘The motivations seem. to be a desire to not be left behind and — ‘Absolutely,”” 102.3 FM pro. ‘4 Web site on which you ean down- load a station-logo screensaver or click on a list of on-air staff per: Harvey Nagler, director ofnews and programing for WCBS-AM , It definitely has a value as promotion — but we don’t use it ‘asa promotional tool.” Well, users can download the station jingles. “We don't do nearly as many pro- ‘motional things as music stations do,” Nagler amends. “And we're learning how to use it more and more each day.” So is everyone, so the sites’ so- phistication and savwy vary. The Charlie Brown teaches kids 1,000 words. “Nova”ike doeumentarie. Already on shelves "Backyard" Ariving in May in "Sea Shore ™ Due in June and July are “sTerraTopia' (a doubled exploration Turin dese Spt for Re) and a Island the fst two "raphe fdventare” in an ania eres for Preteens. The company’s frst CD. ROM fr older famiy members due in September, will be the graphically sorgeoun, incredibly detailed and Tentarched “Obelisk” complex Duralo-solvingadveniuresetn past (and Inythio eihatons = oseph Gelmis Here's the WBAB station logo you can download as a screensaver. 2100 (WHTZ-FM) site (http: ‘www.2100.com) is, indeed, quitea sight, with a sparkling metallic logo for its “Metaverse” (a cooler if admittedly vaguer name than “The 100 Home Page"). While three of its four opening choices seem interchangeable — "What's New,” “What's Up,” “What's Coming” — there's a graphically gorgeous bounty here, nonethe- Tess: photos, in-house musie and movie reviews, a “Melrose Place” link, TV listings, interviews, gos: sip, “eybereasts” of audio clips, and a video view of the Empire State Building (which is interest ing, I guess, ifyou're flashing back to the dawn of TV or something). Most music-station sites, such as WNEW / 102.7 FM’s (http/- www.wnew.com), stick to their strengths — intthisease,a30-song list with links to artists’ home pages, and “Internet. Archives” linked to such fucts-on-file as a movie database and subway info WBAB-FM (http://ww.vwhab,- com/index.html) — an oldtimer, ‘on the ’Net since Septomber, 1994 —has a more extensive, 100-plus set of links to artists’ pages. Did ‘you know Kansas is stl! touring? could update their links more quently; the WBAB-FM Mar- ‘Carey link, for instance, yields **Brror Code 403, Sorry, access de- Died or file doesn’t exist,” and the Ministry link says more pithily, “Error Code 404. Not found. Wellman concedes they only comb the site for dead links “every ‘couple of months” in cyberspace — but this computerperson” clearly has the personal motivation to. get sav- vier, “'H go in there late at nightwhen I want some- thing to do,” he says, “and through one site, you ean go all over! The Jimmy Buffett home page gives you about 100 options, from other hhome pages to tour dates to for Jell-O shots!” ‘Onthenews front, WCBS-AM (http:- Iheww. = newsradio88.com) is a slick but staid eyber-reflection of what's on-air Things like the “Boot Camp” com- puter and technol- ogy report or the “Bob Lape Dining Diary” are transcriptions of the on-air shows. You can, however, e-mail the Station questions for “Ask the Governor” and “Ask the Mayor,” and the site has a fledgling, “‘Metro:Web” section that currently lists only WCBS News 88 is stil learning how to use its Web site. real-estate com- panies and brewer- ies / bars, but prom- ises “You will soon find more.” Tronically, for all these cyherbells and virtual whistles, ra- dio Web sites seem most used for feed- back. “We get a tremen- dous amount of e- mail,” says WCBS. AM's Nagler, “because (audi: ences) have no hesi- tation to sit down andsendanote, Peo- ple tell us they've never sent letters, but it’s easy to send e-mail. We've seen a major inerease in mail, via the computer.” ‘And, amazingly, notjust from the local broad- castareas. “We get e-mail from people who used to live on Long Island and moved away,” mar- Also due next month is a Disney's live-action “The Jungle Book,” first in a series of “movie games” from IBM Multimedia Studio in which players choose new paths through video clips that seamlessly realign themselves, creating new scenarios. vvels Wellman, who hadn't expected it. “They'll say, We've lived in Virginia for 10 years, but i's ‘great to see your screensaver.’ ” One repercus- sion of this global outreach, however, is “we ‘want to promote this to people who listen to the station, so we don’t want to start giving elabo- rate prizes over the site. What good is it some guy in Guam getting Madison Square Garden tickets?” In any event, all the current sites probably will look like biack-and-white kinescopes in a few years. While Nagler points out that real time radio downloaded to computer is in its infancy —""The technology hasn't reached the point where the sound iserystal-clear. You need atleast a 28.8 Kbps modem, and the reality is, a lot of people don’t have that at this time” —no ‘one doubts it’s coming. But for now, it's prob- ably in the same horse cart bringing HDTV (high-definition television) and DVD (digital versatile disc) And, ultimately, being wired will never re- place being wireless. ‘A lot of our audience,” notes Wellman, “listens in their cars.” Frank Loveee is a frequent contributor to Fan- Fare.