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Internet Radio Failing to Find Support?
K Fox asks: "WOXY, one of the Internet's larger radio stations, has announced that it will soon implement a monthly subscription fee, to support operations. When the Cincinnati based station went from terrestrial broadcast 97.7 to Internet only, they vowed to keep their streams free to listers. Now, they are saying that increased broadcast taxes, falling advertising revenue, and the overall uncertainty in the market (local or global?) has pushed them to change their business model. Is this a sign of things to come for the other radio stations, that broadcast over the Internet? Will digital music distribution fall solely to giants like XM and iTunes?"
KCRW is one of the larger NPR affiliates, so they are in a completely different league than a small commercial station. One of the joys of being a non-profit publically funded entity...
This guy's the limit!
WOXY has long been an independant station that played what the DJ's and fans liked. They never sold out to corporate rock, and their motto always has been "Corporate Radio SUCKS!" Their selection varies so widely, and they try their bests to honor requests from everyone. Even when they were on the air and internet at the same time, they took email request around the world.
Gonna have to buy a subscription and support this incredible station.
DI can support up to 40 to 60 thousand listeners simultaneously during peak loads (thrus afternoon), and still make a profit.
DISCLAIMER: I worked for them previously
Sunny Dubey
SKY.FM is part of DI.FM. Digitally Imported has a subscription service for there content. You pay for the higher quality streams.
Virgin radio listener here as well. I'm surprised they've kept the high-bitrate streams open for free.. and have continued to support ogg as well.. here's a link for those that are interested.
r eams.html
d ex.html
http://www.virginradio.co.uk/thestation/listen/st
Here's a index list of each of the virgin radio stations that can be heard,
http://www.virginradio.co.uk/thestation/listen/in
Also, critically KCRW's webcast is a simulcast of their over-the-air signal. WOXY.com is now internet-only.
is the fact that terrestrial radio is a public "good" (in economic terms) which cannot be impeded upon by other radio station listeners, barring call in listeners who request crap. No matter how many people listen to your favorite station, you can listen to is just as well, with no degradation in service.
/.er.
Alternatively, many internet radio streams that I listen to have a predetermined max # of connections. Fortunately, the stuff I listen to (limbikfrequencies.com) does not present this issue. If you can only stream to X number of users at a time, your advertising base will be a bit limited, and not attractive to advertisers.
The majority reason I listen to streamed audio is that #1 I don't have to hear 10min worth of repetitious adverts between songs. In fact, the only breaks in the music of some stations is the website identification voice in, then it's back to the music. #2 There is what I consider to be, great music on these mainly independent sites. Alot of what I've bought over the last 4 or 5 years has not been American top 40, but primarily electronic ambient from Europe (yeah, call me a fag if you want).
So, no adverts + good music + no crap = me listening to streamed audio out of London all the time. Perhaps it would be a better model to have artists "contribute" to streamed audio stations rather then sell their soul to **AA to get promoted, acts which we all know are for shit. Any music I listen to anymore is NOT advertised. Perhaps a small contribution to the station for the pleasure of listening would be possible. If you have 2000 folks that would pay $1(approx)/month to listen, I would be quite sure this would more the make up for bandwidth costs. I would. Hell, I pay iTunes that much for one song. *Disclaimer: I do not have a television, I spend a great deal of time at the computer. I'll assume roughly the same for the average
Cellular internet is getting faster. Soon we should be able to listen to 128kbps streams while on the move. T-Mobile offers unlimited GPRS for $19.99/mo as do other providers; that's fast enough for a crap-quality stream :)
Sure you can, if you know where to shop. I haven't seen these in a meatspace store yet but I bet some of them carry them. And you can always order one. This is far from the only brand/model.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The internet radio station I listen to, Radio Paradise, seems to be doing all right, and it's run entirely on user contributions and affiliate programs (iTunes, Amazon, etc). There are no commercials and it isn't even a non-profit. In fact, they recently topped ten thousand simultaneous listeners for the first time. The only minus is that they occasionally mention being listener-supported and ask for donations. Nowhere near as obnoxious as NPR pledge drives, though....
I know this is just one example, but it shows that it's possible to have an internet radio stations with free streams be a successful business.
A good example of successful simulcasting is WFMU-FM, a non-commercial non-NPR freeform station in Jersey City, NJ. They play lots of obscure and strange music, and they also have a weekday Jewish music and chat show called "JM in the AM." The station has two morning webcasts - one for JM and another that features the usual odd brew that is WFMU's specialty.
From what I understand, the transition to Internet simulcasting was quite successful and led to improved fundraising (now the world funds the station instead of New York City). The station streams in Real, WMA, AAC, Ogg, and two flavors of MP3 (128 Kbps/32 Kbps). Each 128 Kbps MP3 stream (usually 3 hours long) is stored for three weeks, but the Real version is permanently archived.
I've found the WFMU streams to be very reliable. Now I hear that the station is going to be streaming direct to mobile phones. Well, good luck to them 'cause I'm a big fan.
Deep in the ocean are treasures beyond compare; but if you seek safety, it is on the shore.
Airtunes is your friend. I stream to two stereos from my machine in the office remote controlled by the PSP and no alert noises (e.g. incoming email) interferes with this.
If you use Airfoil you can use pretty much any application that processes audio.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
You're completely misinformed, there are more shoutcast stations than ever including several free DI streams and more varied than ever as well (from Polka to Noise). Perhaps you need to make sure you don't run with the default Media Library limits on how many stations to list (iirc the default is like 500, you should set it to 5000 or 50000 instead).
I listen to Radio Paradise daily here and they along with supporting their running costs are working on paying off their old debts this month. So far they have raised almost $30,000 this month.
It seems that with the right combination of music, and website design internet radio does work. They have taken the route of no advertising in their streams, and make all of their money off donations, t-shirt sales and referral revenue.
I don't know your taste in music, but woxy.com plays modern rock -- primarily independent music that isn't overly processed and is generally written and performed by the performers.
Hardly. I've had requests for recent songs dinged by their DJs (very politely) becuase they had just played the within the last three days. Sure, they have their rotations, but heavy rotation on woxy.com is much lighter than at any corporate terrestrial station.
woxy's DJs have a wall of THOUSANDS of CDs from their very beginning -- 1983 or so -- that they can easily access and do on multiple occasions. In addition, they have no problem playing deep cuts on any album if it goes with the flow of the set. Their music ranges runs the alternative gamut from new wave to punk to techno; part of their library is also dedicated to reggae and blues. The latter may not get played nearly as much, but they are available.
The DJs at woxy.com are anything but fake. Their morning DJ, Barb, responds to EVERY email I send her, and she mentions her listners on a regular basis. The other jocks have always responded similarly.
Unfortunately, they don't have enough annoying commercials, which is why they're going to a listner-supported model. The thing is, you can have one or the other: advertising-filled for free or advertising-free for a fee.
woxy is completely independent; they take the risks, they give the people what they want, and there is no corporate angel (or devil) saving their butts/flipping their format when it doesn't bring in enough revenue.
As I understand it, woxy didn't receive that kind of promotional, um, consideration from the record companies because they would play songs before they were supposed to, and playing deeply into the album -- two things that are actually good for the listener, but negatively impacts a song or artist's chart ranking.
Fair enough. But woxy.com has introduced me to a ton of music that I wouldn't have thought to buy in the past all based on hearing new stuff on woxy. Once introduced, I did sample and buy more from those artists, and now i'm in control of those lists.
The fact is that woxy is a breath of fresh air among the staleness of corporate radio. I don't disagree with you that MOST radio stations adhere to those seven reasons why you stopped listening to radio; but woxy is not most stations. It is the antithesis to the kinds of stations that /.ers generally rail against.
Been around for years. They offer both free and paid streams. Plus, they're, like, uh, totally hiring PHP developers and stuff, yo. w00t.
"It will if the RIAA has any say in the matter. The last thing they want is Internet radio. Consider that they pay broadcast radio to play songs but demand to be paid for the same songs going over the Internet."
I am not sure I follow your logic.
With terrestrial radio, licenses are paid only to the societies run by and for the composers and songwriters -- ASCAP, BMI, SESAC and the like -- that is, the representatives of the copyright holders of the words and music. The record companies see none of ths money.
With Internet radio, the RIAA successfully pushed for the owners of the copyright on the recording (that is, the record companies) to get paid, as well.
Here is how the RIAA puts it on their own site:
Terrestrial radio stations don't pay sound recording copyright owners. Why should webcasters be treated any differently?
The lack of a broad sound recording performance right that applies to US terrestrial broadcasts is an historical accident. In almost every other country broadcasters pay for their use of the sound recordings upon which their business is based. For decades, the US recording industry fought unsuccessfully to change this anomaly while broadcasters built very profitable businesses on the creative works of artists and record companies. The broadcasters were simply too strong on Capitol Hill.
However, with the birth of digital transmission technology, Congress understood the importance of establishing a sound recording performance right for digital transmissions, and did so in 1995 with the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act ("DPRA"). In doing so, Congress "grandfathered" the old world of terrestrial broadcasting, but required everyone (including broadcasters) operating in the new world of digital transmissions to pay their fair share for using copyrighted sound recordings in their business.
In short: with Internet broadcasting, the record companies get a cut of the royalties. With traditional radio, they do not. My guess is that they do not want Internet radio stations to go away any time soon.
This gives Slasdotters three groups of people to hate:
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Man, slashdotters can be so fucking annoying sometimes...
I'm sorry my initial example was poor. I just grabbed the first link and didn't look at it much. Nonetheless, there are umpteen fucking examples of streaming internet radio devices. Many of them are available on the shelf, even at places like Circuit Shitty. And I've seen several at Fry's, come to think of it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
CBC Radio 3 is doing just fine in canada ...
It's growing strong on satelitte and the www i believe.