i was up in Thamesville (Between Chatham and London) yesterday, and tried to listen to Doug fm online and when i click listen live i get a message that says "This content is not available in your area.
and i tried to listen to 1053 hot fm here in dearborn heights and i got the same error, what the fuck.

that, my friend, would be Geoblocking - the scourge of the internet. some stations do it by country code top-level domain (ccTLD), some do it by distance from the transmitter or zip code...

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thats bullshit!, what would the point of that even be.

Just like how you can't watch TV online or have cable companies carry local network affiliates from Toledo in Detroit... you can't listen to music or watch videos in another country/region/market... its all about regional broadcast rights of music and television. so, it's to prevent people from watching it where the station (or content owner) does not have legal right to broadcast it.

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~ The Legendary Raccoon-Fox has spoken!

Though in my opinion, it's not national policy, but the decision of the station owners and some program providers (especially for major league sports) -- as far as I know, most stations in other countries, such as Canada, do not implement restrictions on internet feeds of radio stations.

Interesting point on Canadian radio stations with no restrictions on internet feeds. I believe one of the Tigers affiliates in Ontario (London maybe?) used to carry the games over the internet a few years ago. I think MLB cracked down on them and they now no longer carry the games at all.

To avoid paying more in royalties to serve listeners who do nothing for their ad rates.

If you're serious about getting around it, there's freebie and paid VPN services that have exit nodes all over the world; including Southfield.

Links?

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Ignosce illis, quia nesciunt quid loquantur.

A few years back I had a buddy in Australia that used to listen to a local Clear Channel station when they ran a brokered music show, and he even submitted song requests via email; shortly thereafter he said he could no longer get the stream of the show in Oz - that's when CC streaming starting going to the USA only, and US military bases on delay.
Question I have: Is iHeart Radio now available outside of the US, or is that limited to USA also?

You have to pay higher royalty rates if you stream outside of your home country. You'll find restricted videos as well on YouTube and VEVO. You can thank the RIAA, record companies, Sound Exchange, etc. Almost all radio stations have been and still are losing money on streams because of the music royalties. They are separate from the blanket ASCAP and BMI licenses that are for broadcast airplay.

Canadian stations cut out alot of stuff!
Its mostly the commercial stations but, I don't know where you get they don't???

Rogers 'geo-blocks' the streaming of their news stations during the Olympics. TSN Radio cuts out their live play-by-play coverage.
CHUM would do this on their stations too for some of their out of market stations. I think that just depended on their format. Since they've changed hands again I don't what they do now.

Toronto Raptors and Blue Jays games are blocked too. MLB cut out that long ago with MLB.com streaming their Gameday audio. They all cut out their OTA commercials.

We already had a whole conversation on CTV blocking their Olympic streaming. And you cannot watch streaming shows from the US on CTV or Global's sites. Alot of their cable specialty channels are blocked too or like CTV News Net you have to pay a subscriber fee.

Its gonna be all iHeartRadio for everything streaming from now on.

Canada does a ton of 'geo-blocking.'
They are no different.

For pro sports, that is to be expected, due to rights considerations. This especially went for the Olympics, as the IOC does not want anyone that had the rights to the games broadcasting out of their own country. (In previous years, it was even more draconian than that, as the IOC granted NBC worldwide rights to internet streaming, hampering feeds of local rightsholders even in their own countries.)

I've listened to Canadian news and music stations (mainly the CBC and French-language ones), and noticed no challenges. However, CHUM's stations in Windsor block commercials from their internet feeds, mainly to appease advertisers on the Michigan side of the border.

CHUM Is Bell Media now.

That's because CBC Radio has almost all original programming. They buy no programming from a distributor. Whatever they air they have rights to do it. So what's the point of them blocking almost anything. I also don't see alot of French-language American stations claiming infringement by Radio-Canada either.

Virtually every radio and TV station blocks their OTA ads on their streaming. Stations like WJR would sell seperate ads for their online listeners.

CHUM stations had blocked their streaming of out-of-market stations. If you were in Montreal, sick of dialing past two dozen French stations, and trying to get NHL scores or news on CHUM from Toronto on a laptop, no dice. And if you're in Michigan listening to a (now former CHUM) station from Windsor why would it be geo-blocked? Shows like Joy Browne from WOR or Coast to Coast are syndicated on CKLW to cover the Detroit market. I've heard Browne consider her Detroit listeners on CKLW a regular part of her audiance. And what about 93.9???

Sports, especially MLB, basically lead the way in internet blocking for profit purposes.
I don't know what the NBC-IOC deal was years back. But, I'm sure the IOC looked at alot of media outlets around the world back then that did not have the same streaming or internet capabilities of NBC and made a logical call. That's not 'draconian' its smart business. Plus NBC pays them more money then anybody else.

48125er, pixelplay has it right, basically these stations are paying to air this stuff, talk, music or whatever. They have a hard enough time competing within their own market. They don't want to compete with the internet too with no relevance to their ad rates. I'm not sure how internet radio is really going to survive anyway. Cumulus maybe seems to be cornering it with Iheartradio.

All of this comes down to copywrite and syndication rights. The two places this all started was the Napster fall-out and the Icravetv.com case.

I thought Clear Channel owned iheartradio...

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~ The Legendary Raccoon-Fox has spoken!