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Doom and Gloom for Web Radio
DailyTech posted interviews with the founder of Pandora and management from Proton Radio (and Proton Music) asking them what SoundExchange's latest rulings mean to them. A lot of net radio stations are dreading the upcoming changes in royalty rates, which are said to be around 400%... a number that would bankrupt most of the industry. An interesting read for anyone who uses online radio.
The problem with just playing your own mp3 list is that you're not exposed to anything new. I'm not a big fan of DJ'd web music for the very reasons you list. I prefer Pandora, which basically takes the Songs/Artists you like, deconstructs them according to their fundamental nature (like dynamic male vocalist, major key tonality, rhythm guitar, etc) and then using some complex math finds other types of music based on those properties. You then fine tune it using a like/dislike button. It actually works very well and I've found some new music that I really like. Plus I don't find myself fast-forwarding through songs like I do on Yahoo's music service.
I agree, I've found so much new music on web radio that didn't hit the FM waves for at least another 2-3 months, it was like I was looking into the future. I've DJ'd for 10 years plus and the source for being on top of those new songs was web radio. Call it a keen knack for knowing what songs will work but it seems that I could predict a popular song way before it was popular, then I had it ready to play for people when they ask, all because of Internet Radio... I'm also mad and frustrated.
If the average Joe Internet Radio goes away they we will be flooded with more corporate stations that only play what is hot at the time and insert stupid little adverts in between every two songs and do their station call at the beginning and end of each song. Why?!?!
Hey, just thought of something. Are the Internet Radio station royalties only for American stations? So say your favorite Russian site will soon be the place for that Internet Radio you once heard. It is inevitable.
It's not just a jukebox playing a set of music. There's a DJ, who talks to the listeners, and builds a rapport with them, adding variety and features to the show. That's why drivetime radio in the morning and evening is so popular - people like the DJ as well as the music he's playing. There's also the prospect of being introduced to new music you've never heard before.
I DJ (or rather, I present a show, since I'm not spinning decks) on EVE-Radio, a web radio station for the MMO EVE-Online, and I can tell you that's what people like about the radio. It's amplified, in the case of EVE Radio, as the listeners can actually come into the EVE Radio chat channel and talk with the DJ and other listeners, so it's far more communal than you sat at home, or in the car, tuned into your favourite station. Radio as a whole, offers more variety than just sticking in a CD you burned, or playing from your MP3 library. That's what people like about it, and that's what other people don't like about it.
A block of code, sufficiently well-written, is indistinguishable from magick.
pandora IS affected why are you listening to it anyway? www.last.fm is much more efficient and has a much wider range than pandora. like you i first found pandora but now i only listen to last.fm you can be more selective and in general it is better at guessing.
www.tdobson.net #### Dare to Dream #### blog.tdobson.net
You got all that right. I run a darkwave and futurepop radio station myself and play stuff that most people have never heard of before outside the hazy drunkenness of a goth club somewhere. There are a few groups I have in rotation that have acheived some commercial success, but most of them, despite being signed to labels, are almost totally unknown beyond a pretty tight-knit circle.
I have personally had people email me and tell me they loved such and such song, this or that group, and ended up buying some songs off iTunes or CDs or whatever. I know one guy who attended the VNV Nation concert here in Atlanta, after hearing them on my station. Had he never tuned in he'd never have known who VNV Nation was, but he did, and paid for a ticket. What's that mean for VNV Nation? At least the sale of a ticket, plus whatever swag he may have picked up while he was at the show (shirts, albums, buttons, who knows).
This sort of thing happens all the time. Artists seek out net radio broadcasters and send them free tracks, promo kits, and other stuff to get exposure. I'm not even that big a player as internet radio goes, and I've gotten a bunch of CDs in the mail, mp3s, release kits, promotional tracks, and other goodies. More important broadcasters than I am, they get way more stuff.
And why would the artists do this? Because they want exposure, which is something that's actually pretty hard to buy. You can advertise but people learn to tune out and ignore advertisements pretty quickly, in any medium or format. Or you can just spread the word and let your work speak for itself, which is what the musicians are doing.
The RIAA really is killing off a fantastic source of free advertising, and I can't understand what their problem is. It's not as though anyone refrained from buying music because they can just listen to it on the radio. Hell, most of the music I own, I got because I heard it on the radio and just had to have it.
And it was usually internet radio that brought me to it.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.