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Prior to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, federal law limited broadcasters to ownership of only four radio stations in any one market, and a maximum of 40 nationwide. The act loosened regulations to allow ownership of as many as eight stations in a single market, and hundreds nationally.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Two music-industry giants---Bertelsmann">http://www.bmg.com/">Bertelsmann Music Group and Seagram Ltd.'s Universal">http://www.unistudios.com/">Universal Music---have agreed to pool their resources in a joint Internet venture. GetMusichttp://www.getmusic.com/">GetMusic;, as the website will be known, will sell compact discs in direct competition against traditional retailers, other Internet music services, and mail-order music clubs.

As first reported April 8 in EETimeshttp://www.eetimes.com">EETimes;, Sonyhttp://www.sony.com">Sony; has made known its plans for the first generation of Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD) players, to be released in Japan this May. For the last several months, Sony has been suggesting that the SACD format would be going head to head with the competing DVD-Audio format, despite overtures from the DVD-Audio Working Group to join in a single all-encompassing specification.

Last week, The Recording">http://www.riaa.com">Recording Industry Association of America released its year-end anti-piracy statistics, which it says reveal an increase in the number of counterfeit and pirate CDs and CD-recordables confiscated in 1998. "We've had tremendous success this year with our anti-piracy initiatives," said Frank Creighton, senior vice president and director of anti-piracy. "Between the many CD plants around the country adopting better business practices to the scores of universities signing up for our copyright education program---we're making strides on all fronts."

Stereophile magazine is pleased to announce that senior contributing editor Jonathan Scull has joined its full-time staff as senior editor. As of April 19, 1999, he will be based at parent company Emap Petersen's office on lower Fifth Avenue in Manhattan's Flatiron district.

Last week saw a flurry of announcements in the online audio and video streaming business, capped off by Yahoo!'s">http://www.yahoo.com">Yahoo!'s acquisition of Broadcast.comhttp://www.broadcast.com">Broadcast.com;. Yahoo! says it has signed a definitive agreement with Broadcast.com whereby Yahoo! will issue 0.7722 of a share of Yahoo! common stock for each share of Broadcast.com common stock. In addition, all outstanding options of Broadcast.com will be converted into Yahoo! options. The acquisition is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 1999 and is valued at around $5.7 billion, including $4.8 billion in Broadcast.com common stock and $900 million in stock options.

Forget about tuning dots, mystical poker chips, and clocks with programmed electrons. They're all hopelessly out of date.