LA Times writer Jon Healey had a piece the other day about social-online radio site Jango.com that doubles as a snapshot of webcasters' ongoing search for revenues that exceed the cost of the music they stream. (Healey's post at his Bit Player blog includes a Jango widget.)

Here's a section on the economics:

Just to cover royalties obligations, a music webcaster has to generate a little more than 2 cents per user per hour this year (assuming it plays 15 songs per hour). That number, which rises to 2.85 cents by 2010, seems minuscule, but webcasters say they raise only 1.5 cents to 2.5 cents per listener per hour on average. ...

Jango, by contrast, is counting on advertisers to view its site as a way to target their pitches to the right people. In particular, Kaufman said, there are two types that Jango plans to woo: brand advertisers (think beverage companies, carmakers and the like), which can segment Jango's audience according to the users' musical preferences, and the music industry, which can promote new releases and artists to people with matching tastes.