Wired has an interesting piece on MotorFM out of Germany, a new start up radio network that is changing the paradigm of broadcasting revenue and formatting, and of course its all digital. The company is kicking off a model of “mini-shows” that last 10-15 minutes and are sponsored. The station will also offer listeners the ability to download mp3’s of their favorite songs for a fee, these can be paid by sending an SMS message and having the song appear in the users online account. Pretty interesting commercial model. Lets see how it pans out.

“The first step has seen MotorFM, launched Feb. 1, abandon on-air commercials in favor of generating revenue from MP3 downloads and targeted sponsoring of its programming. The next step will be streaming audio directly to 3G cell phones and letting listeners pay for downloads by SMS text message.”

“Ultimately the station will become an advertisement in its own right: If listeners hear a song they want to buy, they simply send an SMS text message from their phone and the song will be downloaded, either to an account on the MotorFM website or to the cell phone itself.”

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