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Ghost listenres drive up royalty fees: Our response

gregg75

gregg75

Often listeners forget to turn you off when they leave and hang on for days or even weeks. These "ghost" listeners are driving up your royalty fees under the 2016 temporary structure in place. We've decided to go with this promo to flush them out. Your input or tweaks in the wording on this would be appreciated. This would be done LIVE (although a recording) at least once per day.

"Attention listeners, at this time we are stopping and restarting our stream in order to remove ghost listeners who are no longer here but forgot to turn us off. (pause)

You may or may not have to re-connect. (pause)

Artist royalty fees continue to go through the roof. If you are a loyal listener you can always help us out by making a pay-pal donation on our website.(pause)

Again, if the stream doesn't restart in 45 seconds you will have to reconnect. Sorry for this inconvience."

So, if your station often gets down to 10 or fewer listeners this may not be necessary, you can just restart at that time. But with 15, 20 or more it may be necessary.
 
Good idea, but you're adding complication to the listening process. I can't imagine anyone paying attention to what you're saying, even though it's important.

Seems to me there's a way to put a time out function on the site, so when it sees no activity, it times out the connection.
 
Yes that's called stopping and restarting the internet station. At least with a PSA, they'd know what was happening, and why they most likely will have to reconnect....instead of the station just flying out the window.
 
Don't understand your Q. Most connect by internet or phone, what the percentage is for each in unknown and not available.

Here's the final version I decided to go with:

Internet radio station artist royalty fees increased greatly in January of this year.
At this time USA Dance Mix is stopping and restarting our stream.
This removes ghost listeners who drive up royalty fees by forgetting to turn us off when they leave.
(ghostly sound)

You may or may not have to re-connect. (ghostly sound)

Loyal listeners can always show us their support by making a pay-pal donation from our website.
Again, if the stream doesn't restart in 45 seconds you will have to reconnect. Sorry for this inconvenience.
 
I just have pre-determined listener durations in the Shoutcast/Icecast config. I dropped it from 12 hours to 6 this weekend. I may slice it down to 4 soon. My way and also your way will fail if the have auto connect set as well. Not that many do. :)
 
So I am running the Ghost Listeners PSA about once a day (usually around 10:30 PM) which is about the fewest listeners of the day. Surprisingly only about 50% are LOST when the station is restarted. It can takes only 20-40 seconds to restart. But my royalty fees did jump from $32 to $51 which is a big increase. I think the station restarts will save me at least $5 a month, not much but ever bit helps.
 
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