.radio set for November launch, weird tiered pricing

The European Broadcasting Union plans to operate the forthcoming .radio gTLD in such a way as to discourage domain investors.
It yesterday set out its launch timetable, registration restrictions, and expects registrars to charge companies between €200 and €250 per domain per year ($213 to $266).
Interestingly, it’s also proposing to charge different, lower prices for individuals, though that pricing tier has not been disclosed.
I’m not sure I can think of another company that wants to charge different prices depending on the class of registrant and it seems like would be tough to enforce.
If I’m the domain manager at a radio company, can’t I just register the domain in my own name, rather than my employer’s, in order to secure the lower price?
Other registries, notably .sucks, have come under fire in the past for charging trademark owners higher fees. Isn’t basing pricing tiers on the legal status of the registrant pretty much the same thing?
That perception could be reinforced by the angle the EBU is taking in its marketing.
“We are proposing that the radio community may like to consider securing the integrity of their web presence by requesting appropriate .radio domains for defensive reasons initially,” .radio TLD Manager Alain Artero said in a blog post.
“The TLD will be focused on content and matters specific to radio and we want to prevent speculators and cybersquatting in this TLD,” he added.
The EBU is not planning to take the TLD to general availability until November, which is a long launch runway by any measure.
Before then, for two months starting May 3, there’ll be a qualified launch program in which radio stations (as opposed to “internet” radio stations) will be able to claim priority registration for their brand.
Sunrise will begin in August.
The EBU secured rights to .radio as a “Community” gTLD, meaning it has to enforce registration restrictions, after a 2014 Community Priority Evaluation ruling allowed it to win its contention set without an auction.
The eligibility criteria are somewhat broad, including: “Radio broadcasting stations. Unions of Broadcasters. Internet radios. Radio Amateurs. Radio professionals (journalists, radio hosts, DJs…) [and] Radio-related companies selling radio goods and services”.

Eurovision deploys dot-brand for ludicrous song contest

It isn’t making a song and dance about it, but the European Broadcasting Union is promoting is annual Eurovision Song Contest using its new dot-brand gTLD, .eurovision.
The default registry domain, nic.eurovision, is mirroring its regular web site — found at eurovision.tv — ahead on Friday night’s televised show.
It’s the only domain in the .eurovision zone so far; the EBU does not seem to be properly promoting the dot-brand yet.
That’s a pity for the domain industry, as Eurovision has a TV viewership measured in the hundreds of millions.
For those outside of the EBU’s 40 participating countries… Eurovision is an annual song competition contested by singers from mostly European nations, viewed in the UK largely as an excuse to have a bit of a mildly derisive giggle at our beloved neighbors’ taste in music, dress, culture, language, and so on.
Last year it was won by an Austrian drag queen with a beard. It’s like that, you understand.

The 60th annual televised Eurovision final takes place on Friday Saturday night.

Community panel hands .radio to EBU because nobody objected

The European Broadcasting Union is likely to win the right to the .radio new gTLD, beating three portfolio applicants, after a favorable Community Priority Evaluation.
The main reason the EBU managed to score a passing 14 out of 16 points in the CPE is that there was no significant objection to the EBU’s bid on the public record.
The EBU managed to win, under ICANN’s complex scoring system, despite the fact that the CPE panel ruled that no one entity, not even the EBU, can claim to represent the “radio” community.
The win means that Donuts, Afilias and BRS Media, which all applied for open .radio gTLDs, will likely have to withdraw their bids and leave .radio in the hands of the EBU’s more restrictive policies.
The EBU’s bid envisages a post-registration enforcement regime, in which registrants’ web sites and Whois records are vetted to ensure they have a community “nexus” and are using their domains in the spirit of the community.
Registrants would have to provide a statement of their usage intent at the point of registration.
Domain investors are explicitly not welcome in the TLD, judging by the EBU’s application.
The EBU, as mentioned, scored 14 out of 16 points in the CPE. The threshold to pass is 14.
As I’ve been saying for years, passing a CPE should be very difficult because applicants can immediately lose two points if there’s any decent opposition to their applications.
The other three applicants for .radio could have easily beaten back the EBU had they managed to effectively organize just a single significant member of the radio community against the EBU’s bid.
However, they failed to do so.
The EBU scored the maximum of two points under the “Opposition” part of the CPE, because, in the words of the panel:

To receive the maximum score for Opposition, the application must not have received any opposition of relevance. To receive a partial score for Opposition, the application must have received opposition from, at most, one group of non-negligible size.
The application received letters of opposition, which were determined not to be relevant, as they were (1) from individuals or groups of negligible size, or (2) were not from communities either explicitly mentioned in the application nor from those with an implicit association to such communities.

Donuts, Afilias and BRS Media all submitted comments in opposition to the EBU application. As competing applicants, these submissions were (probably correctly) disregarded by the panel.
There were a small number of other objecting comments on the record that the CPE panel (again probably correctly) chose to disregard as coming from organizations of negligible size.
The was one comment, in Polish, from a Polish law firm. Another comment came from a something dodgy-looking calling itself the International Radio Emergency Support Coalition.
A third comment came from the Webcaster Alliance, a group that made a bit of a name for itself a decade ago but which today has a one-page web site that doesn’t even list its members (assuming it has any).
Attempts by BRS Media, which already runs .am and .fm, to orchestrate a campaign of opposition seem to have failed miserably.
In short, the panel’s decision that there was no relevant, on-the-record opposition seems to be on pretty safe ground.
What’s slightly disturbing about the CPE is that the panel seems to have decided that the EBU does not actually represent the radio community as described in its application.
It dropped one point on the “Community Establishment” criteria, and another on the “Nexus between Proposed String and Community” criteria.
Specifically, it lost a point because, as the panel stated:

Based on information provided in the application materials and the Panel’s research, there is no such entity that organizes the community defined in the application. Therefore, as there is no entity that is mainly dedicated to the community as defined in the .RADIO application, as the Panel has determined, there cannot be documented evidence of community activities.

In other words, there may be a “radio community”, but nobody, not even the EBU, is responsible for organizing it.
It also lost a point because while the string “radio” does “identify” the community, it does not “match” it.
The panel explained:

To receive the maximum score for Nexus, the applied-for string must “match” the name of the community or be a well-known short-form or abbreviation of the community name. To receive a partial score for Nexus, the applied-for string must “identify” the community. “Identify” means that the applied-for string should closely describe the community or the community members, without over-reaching substantially beyond the community.

Failing to get full marks on community and nexus would usually, in my view, indicate that an application would not succeed in its CPE bid.
However, the lack of any outcry from significant members of the community (either because there was no such opposition or the three rival applicants failed to muster it) seems set to allow .radio to be managed by the applicant with the most restrictive policies.

New gTLD applicants: here’s how to lobby the GAC

ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee has let it be known that it’s open to receiving communications from new gTLD applicants.
But the GAC will only hear briefings from applicants at the request of GAC members, according to a notice posted on the GAC’s web site recently.
The GAC has strong powers to recommend the rejection of new gTLD applications, so naturally enough some applicants have already been lobbying to reinforce their positions.
Applicants are now being asked to send information to a specific email address or — implicitly — to lobby GAC representatives individually.
The new statement reads:

It is important to bear in mind that GAC members are still in the process of analysing the list of applications and applicants for new gTLDs. However, there have been a number of requests from applicants or other interested stakeholders to brief or provide briefing material to the GAC.
Briefings for the GAC will only be scheduled on a best-efforts basis and entirely at the request of GAC members.
An internal process for handling requests and tracking materials is being put in place, but those wanting to make their interest or availability known or to express an interest in providing written materials to the GAC can contact the GAC via gacsec@gac.icann.org. A list of those expressing interest or availability or that have provided materials will be made available to the GAC membership.

The GAC caused controversy last month when it accepted the European Broadcasting Union’s application for Observer status on the committee.
The EBU is also an applicant for .radio, which is contested by Donuts, Afilias and BRS Media.
BRS Media claims this is a conflict of interest and recently started lobbying for the EBU to withdraw its application. This week, it set up a web site to promote its cause.

.radio gTLD applicant joins the GAC

The European Broadcasting Union, which is one of four applicants for the .radio top-level domain, has asked to join ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee as an observer.
It is believed that its request is likely to be accepted.
The move, which comes just a couple of weeks after ICANN revealed its list of new gTLD applications, could raise conflict of interest questions.
While several GAC governments and observers are backing new gTLD bids – the UK supports .london, for example – they’re generally geographic in nature and generally not contested.
But .radio has been applied for by Afilias, BRS Media and Donuts in addition to the EBU.
While any organization can file objections against applications, under the rules of the new gTLD program the GAC has the additional right to issue special “GAC Advice on New gTLDs”.
Consensus GAC advice is expected to be enough to kill an application.
Since it’s not entirely clear how the GAC will create its formal Advice, it’s not yet clear whether the EBU will have any input into the process.
According to the GAC’s governing principles, observers do not have voting rights, but they can “participate fully in the GAC and its Committees and Working Groups”.
The EBU’s .radio gTLD would be open to all potential registrants, but it would be subject to post-registration content restrictions: web sites would have to be radio-oriented, according to the application.
It’s also the only Community-designated bid in the contention set, meaning it could attempt a Community Priority Evaluation to resolve the dispute.
The EBU has also applied for .eurovision, the name of its annual singing competition, as an uncontested dot-brand.

.radio is now a contested gTLD

The proposed .radio generic top-level domain is now officially contested, after the European Broadcasting Union confirmed that it plans to apply for the gTLD.
It’s the second .radio candidate to publicly reveal its intentions after BRS Media’s long-public bid.
The Executive Board of the EBU met in London yesterday – cutting it pretty fine given ICANN’s deadlines – and officially approved the bid, according to an EBU announcement.
The organization said in a statement:

the .radio TLD would allow the EBU to create an internet-based platform where the world’s radio broadcasters could assemble. Closer networking ‘under one roof’ would also bolster their position as an indispensible media sector, whose development would be accelerated by new radio services.

The EBU said its bid is supported by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU); Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU); African Union of Broadcasting (AUB); Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU); International Association of Broadcasting (IAB); North American Broadcasters Association (NABA); Organizacion de Telecomunicaciones Iberoamericanas (OTI).
The EBU is a Swiss trade association comprising national broadcasters, mostly based in Europe.
It’s also known for its annual Eurovision Song Contest broadcast, a singing competition which is known at least in the UK as a bit of tacky joke.
Oh, and the EBU has confirmed that it is going to apply for .eurovision, which appears to be the first example – but certainly not the last – of a probably wholly unnecessary dot-brand.
BRS Media, which also has longstanding plans to apply for .radio, is the current registry operator for the repurposed ccTLDs .am and .fm.
BRS still plans to apply for .radio, according to CEO George Bundy.
“We always felt that our knowledge of the On-Air AND Online Radio marketplace, backed with 15 years of real (.FM/.AM) registry experience provides us with a much better understanding in managing, marketing and operating an Industry specific top-level domain, like .Radio,” he said.