Top-notch coverage of yesterday’s RAIN Summit

After we recover from the rush of yesterday’s successful RAIN Summit Orlando event (and today’s iTunes Radio launch), we’ll get cracking on our own coverage of the Summit. In the meantime, our colleagues at news sources like Tom Taylor Now, Inside Radio, Radio Ink, and AllAccess were at the event, and all have published coverage of their own.

One of yesterday’s most compelling Summit panel discussions addressed the contentious issue of online “simulcasting” versus the use of ad-insertion technology (Taylor, Inside Radio, and Radio Ink all led their coverage with it). The panel consisted of Saga’s Steve Goldstein, Triton Digital’s Mike Agovino, OMD’s Natalie Swed Stone, AdsWizz’s Alexis Van de Wyer, and Greater Media’s Tom Bender.

The speakers on the panel — broadcasters included — acknowledged the attraction of customizable pureplay webcasts with few (or no) commericals, and agreed that broadcasters need to offer more than “an extension of the tower.”

At least as “buzz-worthy,” judging by the coverage, was Entercom president and CEO David Field’s keynote address. A few contentious points may have been expected, what with a broadcast group head keynoting such a conference. Field, as you can read, insisted that the audio consumption “pie is growing,” and that’s for broadcast radio too. More controversially, he challenged the veracity of Pandora’s self-described 7% share of overall U.S. radio listening, and contended that the webcaster’s granular ad-targeting actually makes them a less efficient advertising vehicle. He says radio gets the “bonus weight” of delivering ad messages to non-targeted demos.

A research presentation from GroupM Next caught industry journalists’ attention — notably their finding that nearly half of Pandora and iHeartRadio users say they plan to switch to Apple’s iTunes Radio product when it launches today — even before testing it. Also making news was the strong the desire for a “connected-dashboard” car among younger demos. Newly-appointed RAIN managing editor Brad Hill moderated a discussion panel on this very topic. Read his coverage of “The Race to the Dashboard” here.

Also, please see our coverage of the 2013 RAIN Internet Radio Awards here.

Thanks to our colleagues for their coverage of RAIN Summit Orlando. Read more from Tom Taylor Now here, Radio Ink here and here, in AllAccess here, and at InsideRadio.com here.