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Doing Research for a fictional story

W

wxctintern

Guest
One of my other interests besides radio is writing stories. Right now I'm almost ready to write a fictional story about a guy starting a radio station. Sure ficitional stories are made up, but some stuff I feel should factual.

The character in the story is gonna be launching an Oldies Station. Where would he go to get the 1500-2000 songs that will be in the playlist? (music would be 1955-1979). Also how much money would it cost him to get the music? And if the music is on CDs, how would he go about transferring them to the computer for playback?<P ID="signature">______________
~Jay Clark~
</P>
 
I can't help you with the dollar and technical questions, but unless your story is about a guy whose oldies station fails, he oughta be buying only about 600-800 songs tops, and the range of years should drop by about 5 years on either end, you decide.


> One of my other interests besides radio is writing stories.
> Right now I'm almost ready to write a fictional story about
> a guy starting a radio station. Sure ficitional stories are
> made up, but some stuff I feel should factual.
>
> The character in the story is gonna be launching an Oldies
> Station. Where would he go to get the 1500-2000 songs that
> will be in the playlist? (music would be 1955-1979). Also
> how much money would it cost him to get the music? And if
> the music is on CDs, how would he go about transferring them
> to the computer for playback?
>
 
I had a Dream

In the Old Days the "Guy" would hire a Consultant, and maybe a Music Library Service. In these Modern days, this "Guy" could put together a Playlist in a matter of Minutes, from his personal collection, Friends or the Internet. Are you going to have Announcers, they're Optional you know. And you can call your Station K-JAY, or JAY FM. Good luck with this story, please don't post it here when you're done?
 
> The character in the story is gonna be launching an Oldies
> Station. Where would he go to get the 1500-2000 songs that
> will be in the playlist? (music would be 1955-1979). Also
> how much money would it cost him to get the music? And if
> the music is on CDs, how would he go about transferring them
> to the computer for playback?

$495 from Halland Broadcast Services. 4300 songs (multi-format, but a complete oldies library is included) and it's already on hard drive. More info is at www.h-b-s.com
 
> The character in the story is gonna be launching an Oldies
> Station. Where would he go to get the 1500-2000 songs that
> will be in the playlist? (music would be 1955-1979). Also
> how much money would it cost him to get the music? And if
> the music is on CDs, how would he go about transferring them
> to the computer for playback?

How about he loves oldies so much he already has all the songs in his personal library, and he lucks out and finds a radio "whiz kid" interning at another station who can rip the whole library in a week?

Would make for better reading than the guy buying a service.
<P ID="signature">______________


</P>
 
You're forgetting I said this story is fiction. That means it's not real. Since the story isn't real it means an oldies station can be successful playing that many songs with-in the era.<P ID="signature">______________
~Jay Clark~
</P>
 
> One of my other interests besides radio is writing stories.
> Right now I'm almost ready to write a fictional story about
> a guy starting a radio station. Sure ficitional stories are
> made up, but some stuff I feel should factual.
>
> The character in the story is gonna be launching an Oldies
> Station. Where would he go to get the 1500-2000 songs that
> will be in the playlist? (music would be 1955-1979). Also
> how much money would it cost him to get the music? And if
> the music is on CDs, how would he go about transferring them
> to the computer for playback?
>
Jay,

Just sent you an email about this..<P ID="signature">______________
Memories Radio..
www.live365.com/stations/alanmccall</P>
 
Have you seen the movie Play Misty For Me?


> One of my other interests besides radio is writing stories.
> Right now I'm almost ready to write a fictional story about
> a guy starting a radio station. Sure ficitional stories are
> made up, but some stuff I feel should factual.
>
> The character in the story is gonna be launching an Oldies
> Station. Where would he go to get the 1500-2000 songs that
> will be in the playlist? (music would be 1955-1979). Also
> how much money would it cost him to get the music? And if
> the music is on CDs, how would he go about transferring them
> to the computer for playback?
>
<P ID="signature">______________
[email protected]</P>
 
I get the catalogues, and there are some CD Box sets that have the whole oldies station library for $50.
I have looked at these CD's thought, why listen to oldies, when I can buy all their songs for $50. and not hear any spots?



> I can't help you with the dollar and technical questions,
> but unless your story is about a guy whose oldies station
> fails, he oughta be buying only about 600-800 songs tops,
> and the range of years should drop by about 5 years on
> either end, you decide.
>
>
> > One of my other interests besides radio is writing
> stories.
> > Right now I'm almost ready to write a fictional story
> about
> > a guy starting a radio station. Sure ficitional stories
> are
> > made up, but some stuff I feel should factual.
> >
> > The character in the story is gonna be launching an Oldies
>
> > Station. Where would he go to get the 1500-2000 songs that
>
> > will be in the playlist? (music would be 1955-1979). Also
> > how much money would it cost him to get the music? And if
> > the music is on CDs, how would he go about transferring
> them
> > to the computer for playback?
> >
>
<P ID="signature">______________
[email protected]</P>
 
> You're forgetting I said this story is fiction. That means
> it's not real. Since the story isn't real it means an oldies
> station can be successful playing that many songs with-in
> the era.
>

Oh. Gotcha. Then he gets 1500-2000 songs from Kazaa for free and plays each one in real time into his computer system. Or, for more realism (which your original post implied you're looking for), he hires someone at $8 an hour to do it for him. And his station is successful.

Or, for more realism, it's not.
 
> The character in the story is gonna be launching an Oldies
> Station. Where would he go to get the 1500-2000 songs that
> will be in the playlist?
>

Oh, yeah. Since your character has a 1500-2000 tune playlist in his Oldies station...I can see that this is obviously going to be a work of fiction. ;)
 
Nowadays you can get the music transferred for you (no need for CD's), but you can get CDs too if you so prefer. There are several companies offering these services (among may others, these are just the three biggest ones I know about).

Here's one more that also offfers a lot of stuff for smaller market stations.

http://www.h-b-s.com/

This one is a bit pricier and works more with bigger stations on bigger multi/station type arrangements.They can also set you up with production libraries with which to make commercials and promos, jingles, automation systems, surf their site). Dont know about prices, though.

http://www.tmcentury.com/golddisc.asp

Another company offering similar services as well as consulting, which is an interesting "tangent" your book might want to explore;

http://www.jonesradio.com/MusicFormats/Gold/Oldies/index.html

That should get you started.

NOTE - I am NOT a lawyer, but I'd caution you to use ficititious made-up names if you want to "copy" or "use" any of these companies or they could sue you for defamation if, say, the "bad guy" in your book ends up being, say, the CD supplier from THEIR company (for example). Use the INFORMATION above, but change it to protect the innocent. No naming of actual names and companies! Again, you might want to talk to a lawer about this kind of stuff to avoid trouble!
Good luck with your book.

Ray.

<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by radioray on 07/11/05 11:38 AM.</FONT></P>
 
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