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AMPED FM closes up shop

C

Casey

Amped FM has shutdown due to royalty costs. I personally listened to them quite a bit and they usually had several thousand simultaneous listeners from what I noticed. I wondered why their station left the shoutcast listings, so I finally went to their site today and found out why.


From Amped FM website-

Amped FM is off the air!

02.23.11: Amped FM is off the air. We have (with deep sadness) decided to close up shop at Amped FM. The cost to run our stations kept going up and the sponsors and donations never really followed. We would like to thank all of our loyal listeners for standing by us and making Amped FM a great radio network. We would also like to thank all of the Amped FM staff members and dj's that helped up along the way. We will keep the site up and running and we do hope to hear from some of you. Maybe some good ole stories or why you loved Amped FM... Thanks for your support and thanks for listening.
 
An all too common story from many people who gave it the good fight. The royalty structure makes it difficult to break even, let alone trying to get ahead to allow for future growth.

I ran a webstream for 7 years and terminated it 4 years ago. While loads of people listened to it directly from iTunes and from the site the percentage of those providing any sort of financial incentive was close to non-existant. Except for two very loyal listeners I hardly had anybody else chipping in. I had become so bitter and angry I came home one Sunday after dinner with friends and pulled the plug not only on the stream but on the web site. The station pretty much disappeared within a matter of minutes.

There are way too many people who take it as a passive entertainment option and never feel compelled to get involved, then they wonder why stream operators get disillusioned and pull the plug. Listeners aren't as loyal today as they were to radio back "way back when."

It's a tough go unless you have a boatload of cash to throw away.
 
I was wondering does anybody know how to get a hold of the owners?
 
Nearly 500,000 listeners. Man, think about how much they had to pay out every month. And people wonder why I like to keep things small.
 
Something is seriously wrong there, because if you can't sell advertising to cover your costs, and make a profit with that many listeners, then you deserve to go dark. With that many, it seems to me that there should have been national advertisers and ad agencies involved.
 
LowPayDJ said:
Something is seriously wrong there, because if you can't sell advertising to cover your costs, and make a profit with that many listeners, then you deserve to go dark. With that many, it seems to me that there should have been national advertisers and ad agencies involved.
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Don't forget...these 500,000 listeners are not listening from within a local area, these listeners are all around the world. Out of that 500,000, you don't know if there are probaly 90,000 people listening out of the US, and probaly 70,000 from Europe. Could there be at least a few small company sponsors? Sure, but it would be a hard sell to get the major companies to sponsor.
 
I guess I'm just not in the loop on this royalty thing because I don't understand why an internet station has to pay..when every mother's son can post millions of tunes on You Tube or Face Book..apparently without fear..if an internet station has to pay for playing a song..why aren't the the money hungry bastards going after those people ?? The money is for performance rights...correct ?? well..whats the difference in hearing it on LIVE 365 and You Tube ? I know in my radio days..BMI,ASCAP, AND SESAC were paid based on the stations billing...a small AM day timer paid nowhere near what a 50K mutharocker paid...call me "DAZED AND CONFUSED"
 
deltas69 said:
I guess I'm just not in the loop on this royalty thing because I don't understand why an internet station has to pay..when every mother's son can post millions of tunes on You Tube or Face Book..apparently without fear..if an internet station has to pay for playing a song..why aren't the the money hungry bastards going after those people ?? The money is for performance rights...correct ?? well..whats the difference in hearing it on LIVE 365 and You Tube ? I know in my radio days..BMI,ASCAP, AND SESAC were paid based on the stations billing...a small AM day timer paid nowhere near what a 50K mutharocker paid...call me "DAZED AND CONFUSED"
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I think this sums it up best....

Pat Cook said:
No because all SoundEXTORTION sees is NOTHING BUT $$$ going out the door (Even if the $$$ aren't even theirs to begin with!)

Heck, they're even trying to collect royalties FOR DEAD PEOPLE now. It's only a matter of time before they start charging royalties to every Internet Radio station carrying Jack Benny shows (And those shows are PUBLIC DOMAIN now!).

It's coming people. Just wait. The RIAA & SoundEXTORTION will find a way to make a profit from those old shows (If they don't BUY their own way first like they did in getting the DMCA into the law books of this country :mad: ).

Cheers :D
Click to expand...
 
i have a small station over on ustream..not gonna tell anyone where...just yet but been there about two years with over 6000 hits..small loyal following from friends for my format from 63 through 93 i spent over 30 years in radio/live music/recording..and just do it for the hell of it live on weekend nights. i asked sound exchange about becoming "legal" they said i qualified as a "microcaster"..and i could get their blessing for 500.00 per year...then i asked..ok...i send you 500 dollars..how do you know who i'm playing on shownights so you can get the money to the artists or their representitives?? i have yet to hear from them..and thats been over six months ago..the whole things stinks of SCAM big time.........
 
Well there are places you can go as a small broadcaster and depending on your situation pay as little as $9.95 a month which covers ASCAP, SESAC, and SoundExchange...

Several places have Joint Publishing Licenses and based on your revenue & listener hours per month they charge you a monthly fee...

I think in you make zero profit and under 8000 listener hours you pay $12.95 per month under a JPL situation...

And if the ASCAPs and SESACs of the world want us little guys to be on board with paying to play then this type of model has got to be in place or pirate stations will always outnumber the legal stations
 
Amped FM has returned. According to their website it was sold and the new owners are very excited to take over and get things up and running.

Who knows if they will be able to make a profit. It is a tough business and Amped FM has lost a lot of the steam they had built up, but I wish them the best of luck.
 
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