IBS Student Radio Network Collaborates with Content Providers

Two leading digital music providers, Trakheadz and SMtv Music, have agreed to
offer royalty-free music to over 1,000 college and high school radio stations
via the Intercollegiate Broadcasting Systems’ new IBS Student Radio Network, operated
by Backbone.

The agreement will offer broad exposure to the emerging artists and their
music, and will allow the IBS Student Radio Network to offer its listenership
fresh, alternative music content from many of tomorrow’s hottest indie bands
and performers.

This
development follows the recent ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB),
which significantly increased royalty fees that Internet radio stations must
pay to major record labels (RIAA) for each song aired, and it eliminates the
differences in rates between Internet and terrestrial radio stations for these
artists’ music.

“We appreciate Trakheadz and SMtv Music providing their content to the IBS
Student Radio Network for royalty-free streaming,” said Len Mailloux,
Chairman and Executive Vice President of the Intercollegiate Broadcasting
System (IBS) “Trakheadz and SMtv Music recognize the promotional value of providing this type of programming and we look forward to
breaking some of the new artists that they represent. Providing their content
under the same terms as terrestrial broadcasters will ease the administrative
burden on college radio stations to comply with increasingly complex broadcast
rules and regulations.”

“The IBS Student Radio Network offers an excellent opportunity for Trakheadz.com
artists and labels to get their music heard,” says Steve Keitt, CEO of Trakheadz.com.
“The information that will be passed back to us on listenership and
playlists will be invaluable to our members.

For
decades both indie and major labels have relied on college radio stations to
help them introduce new music to the record buying community. The IBS Student
Radio Network ensures that college radio remains an indispensable source
whereby up and coming artists can gain exposure that is essential to achieving mainstream success in the music
industry.”

“I’m honored to be providing audio feeds of SMtv to the network,”
said Samantha Murphy, founder, host and producer of the popular SMtv podcast
series which each week introduces tens of thousands of subscribers to new
singer-songwriter performers. “SMtv has been an incredible promotional opportunity for myself and the artists I’ve featured for the last two and a half years. By partnering with the IBS Student Radio
Network, we’ll create another valuable distribution channel for the artists
featured on SMtv. The proposed CRB rate increase threatens to remove an entire
online audience from our reach. In light of this, we must act accordingly to
not only protect this vital promotional resource, but to also send a message of
web radio’s importance to the CRB and the RIAA. As emerging artists, our very careers
depend upon it.”

“This is an exciting advance for Internet radio,” said Richard Cerny,
President of Backbone Networks Corporation. “The synergy between student
audiences and independent music artists is extremely deep. College radio is
where new artists find an enthusiasm for fresh and creative material, and Trakheadz and SMtv Music will be supplying an important
resource in their vast catalogs of independent music for stations to play. This
type of cooperative relationship between artists and broadcasters will help
accelerate the adoption of the

Internet as the broadcast medium of choice.”

The IBS Student Radio Network is the first true Internet radio network,
one that specifically aims at enhancing the student radio education experience.
The IBS Student Radio Network will use Backbone’s advanced client-server Internet
radio automation software to enable student operated stations to syndicate live
and produced programming among member stations, as well as automatically access
royalty-free programming from worldwide third-party sources such as Trakheadz.com
and SMtvMusic.com. Artists supplying music to the network through Trakheadz and
SMtv Music will be provided with statistics informing them which stations
played their music, as well as other data including times, dates and the number
of listeners.

Network stations will be offered collections of news feeds, royalty-free
music from emerging and alternative independent artists, and other programming
that will be available only to stations on the Network. Member stations will be
able to draw programming from one another through shared server databases, as well as have access to each other’s
live feeds, including sporting events and concerts. A simple laptop computer
with a wireless card will enable a school correspondent to cover remote events,
including play-by-play coverage

of away games.

IBS and Backbone Networks recently announced the
pilot program and have signed pilot stations to the network. The fall semester
will witness the launch of the network with demonstrations and additional sign
up opportunities at all of the IBS regional radio/webcasting conferences. The IBS Regional Conferences are this fall in

Seattle,

Boston,

Chicago,

Fort Lauderdale and

Los
Angeles

(http://www.collegeradio.tv)