Internet Radio: Pros, Cons & Realities

[40fan]

I'd like to open this piece by telling you about Auburn, New York; a place where "local" radio fell by the wayside years ago. There are two AM stations. One is a Radio Disney affiliate simulcasting a station based in Syracuse; 25 miles to the east. The other is a news-talk formatted station (with the usual gang of national gabbers other than Rush) that is run out of Geneva; 35 miles to the west. Auburn used to have a very powerful commercial FM station but two years ago the current owners were able to get the city-of-licence relocated to a Syracuse suburb. So that's gone! There's the community college station which automates an alternative rock format but also has weekly shows for the local Italian, Irish and Polish communities and covers the local minor league baseball team. Most recently a new FM began a Catholic format based out of Rochester.

I begin with that paragraph because, as one who used to broadcast here, I feel the city is underserved by what's available over the air. Yes I'm nostalgic for the days of spinning records, reading community calander announcements and working the phones. But I accept the reality that today's radio is all about automation, syndication and cost-cutting! It's a business!

Now...on to my main point. The new platform of internet radio. Is it possible to start a non-corperate station with the simple purpose of programming the way it used to be done? Can it succeed? Can it build an audience more substantial than a "cult following"?

There are two webcasters I recently discovered that I've really come to admire for their determination. One is Geneva Community Radio genevaradio.blogspot.com/ The owner of this "station" (run out of his apartment) is really giving it his best and he recently posted this on Radio-Info. boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=212755.0
The other is an oldies outlet called Bullseye Radio. www.bullseyeradio.com/ They got some nice print publicity: www.tompkinshosting.com/tompkinsweekly/TompkinsWeekly110418.pdf#page=11

One thing that greatly struck me about this type of radio; have we really reached the point where being a Disc Jockey is something you volunteer to do?

Allright my friends...just what are the pros, cons and realities on internet radio?

[Deleted]

Stories like this amaze me. Not because I dont believe them but because I just can't believe it's gotten to this point. I would have thought every municipality everywhere was served by some sort of local radio outlet even it it did suck. Can you get legit, true, local news and information from any of these affiliates near you or is your market just completely glossed over all the way around?

[Caseyfan4everRyanfanNever]

I love Internet Radio (Radioio especially) and its broad playlists, just like satellite radio (XM) when it started out (before Mel from Hell and Sirius ran it into the ground by acting too much like terrestrial radio.). Wish I could find an American Top 40 or Casey channel on Internet Radio.

[Deleted]

I'm sure if you did it would be issued a cease and desist warning soon after it was discovered. Here's where I fall on satellite radio. XM, I loved it at first and then they went through a phase where a subculture group of "this can sound NOTHING like terrestrial radio" made the higher ups think that's what needed to be done. So, it felt like a jukebox on automation. I hated that. When I had Sirius in 2006, I liked it. It seemed to me to have a mix of music and non-annoying DJs talking every so often. Now that they've merged it's a double edged sword. It's a hundred times better than terrestrial radio but not anywhere near as good as it was in pre-merger days. Axing the 80s AT40, Rick Dees shows, and butchering the 70s AT40 shows didn't help. It's not just an "I love countdown shows so boohoo they aren't on anymore thing." Those shows in their proper form gave the stations they were on personality, flavor, and a break from the people usually on. Now on the 80s station its the same 4 doing the countdown that do the regular dayparts as well. I have nothing against the show or them and am not going to go with those on the board who have renamed it to what they have. The show is fine most of the time. But they air it like 5 or 6 times on the weekend. It'd be nice if Casey and Rick got one of those so it wasn't the exact same thing over and over again.

[40fan]

As to Paul's question; the news-talk station does employ one man to cover Auburn with some three minute newscasts in the morning, and other reports filed are mixed with more broad regional coverage.

Is an internet broadcaster nothing more than a pirate without a transmitter? You have sites such as LoudCity and Live365 with the "create your own station" tag. (note: Geneva C.R and Bullseye, mentioned above, stream via LoudCity)

Is the I-phone the new transistor radio? Does "There's an app for that" apply to independent webcasters?

Did you see in the linked article about Bullseye radio that there was a listener base of 20,000? That ain't bad at all!

[Deleted]

Jun 24, 2012 15:25:52 GMT -5 40fan said:

As to Paul's question; the news-talk station does employ one man to cover Auburn with some three minute newscasts in the morning, and other reports filed are mixed with more broad regional coverage.

Is an internet broadcaster nothing more than a pirate without a transmitter? You have sites such as LoudCity and Live365 with the "create your own station" tag. (note: Geneva C.R and Bullseye, mentioned above, stream via LoudCity)

Is the I-phone the new transistor radio? Does "There's an app for that" apply to independent webcasters?

Did you see in the linked article about Bullseye radio that there was a listener base of 20,000? That ain't bad at all!

I'm not in the radio business but isn't pirate radio broadcasting without a license? Thus you don't pay for music licensing, etc. In the case of Live365 and others you are creating your own station under the guise of their license and I would assume whatever they have license to air. So for example, if you want to have "Enter Sandman" by Metallica on your station and they don't have a license to air it and it's not in their catalogue, guess what? Doesn't matter whether you are creating your own personal channel or not....you aren't going to carry that song.

Again, I may be totally wrong on all accounts and may not know what I am talking about. But that's what it would seem to be to me.

[saltrek]

The way I think it works (and I could be wrong) is that there are two or three major companies that control all the rights (ASCAP, BMI and maybe one other). Live 365 and the others make deals with all two or three companies and it pretty much covers all the music you could play.

[Deleted]

Right so technically you are creating your own radio station under their license. I believe that's totally different from what we all knew/know as true pirate radio.

[doomsdaymachine]

My problem is, I have neither the time nor the patience to sit by my computer when I want to listen to the radio. When I can hear Internet radio in the the car, I'll be much more strongly inclined to give it a chance.

[caseyfan100]

Internet radio can also be picked up by cell phone. A friend of mine has started an internet station called netclassichits.com and it's available on your cell phone thru Tune In.

[Deleted]

Free european satellite radio is OK here , you get almost all the interesting stations from all the countries in the region and the quality is almost CD, then for american radio stations you have to go to internet radio.

The shows I love are american syndicated radio shows, so I need internet for listening to radio. If only european radio would see american radio shows with other eyes.... But here we are so posh and think american content is boring and the real boring is here.

All those syndicated shows , we all love , should be as the shows on rick.com, possible 24/7 , then we will not need those internet radios.