Radio news vet to try new niche

Longtime radio reporter Michael Linder plans to launch a Venice Beach-based Internet radio outlet after the first of the year. There's a preview up at KVB.FM. "Venice Beach is a great global brand and we plan to program music and entertainment that captures all the excitement, beach culture, fun and sun that is Venice," Linder says on his blog.

“AM radio was the ‘next big thing’ in 1922, as huge as the web bubble of the 1990s” says Linder, interviewing himself for this story.

“Internet radio is today’s broadcasting phenomenon. Ratings service Arbitron says online radio’s audience is increasing by 50% every year. Right now, more than 20% of 18-to-34-year-olds listen to web radio every week, and their ranks are growing quickly.”

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“KVB.FM will be a smart, hip station with a personality as unique as its home town and uncluttered by the endless commercials and tune-out crap infecting old school radio.”

Linder lost his reporting job at KABC in August.