KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: First there was A.M. radio, then along came F.M., with its stronger, clearer signal and stereo.</s>CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: And now, there's Internet radio that's eclipsing the competition around the world. Tune-in to CNN's Dennis Michael.</s>DENNIS MICHAEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Soundbreak sounds a lot like radio: lots of music, a sultry-voiced DJ. But there's one thing missing: any kind of broadcast equipment. Soundbreak.com is 21st century radio over the Internet. Soundbreak's DJs keep up a lively chat with listeners, they are visible to Web surfers, and listeners can instantaneously buy the music being played.</s>MARK GOODMAN, SOUNDBREAK.COM: We are writing the book. We're making up the rules.</s>MICHAEL: For KNAC.com, the best thing is there are no rules. KNAC was the pioneering metal radio station in Los Angeles, but was driven into extinction by bigger broadcast guns. If competition killed KNAC, the Internet provided it with a very happy afterlife, with much more freedom now that government controls on broadcasting are superfluous without a transmitter. Like KNAC, Groove Radio was once bound to a tower, but early experiments with Webcasting ensured a new future.</s>SWEDISH EGIL, FOUNDER, GROOVE RADIO.COM: It was very intermittent. The signal broke every 20 minutes, but we still got about a half a million people tuning in from around the world.</s>MICHAEL: Radio is really one of the oldest and lowest tech forms of mass media, but it faces an immediate and radical transformation in the digital age.</s>RITA WADE, PROGRAM DIRECTOR, KLOS-FM: How can you predict the future? Nobody knew, you know, 35 years ago that FM radio would become what it became. And right now, it's the same sort of thing with Internet radio.</s>MICHAEL: Dennis Michael, CNN Entertainment News, Hollywood.
Internet Radio Eclipsing Competition Around the World