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Is Internet Radio "REAL" Radio?

H

helloagain

More and more I am thinking so.

I would like to network with anyone else who sees Internet Radio as a realistic option to gain advertising support and serve a community or group.

email me [email protected]

If you have your own station, great...if you want to be part of building a station...cool too...I am down for whatever.
 
I recently watched an interview with a guy I worked with over 50 years ago in a small market. He moved on to bigger and better things, eventually becoming a Chicago radio legend. In the interview he said that radio is dying. The future is, what he called, "WiFi radio", which I can only assume would be Internet Radio. For a guy who made a great career out of terrestrail radio, that really surprised me. Especially since the interview was from 2008.
 
stuckinthe50s said:
I recently watched an interview with a guy I worked with over 50 years ago in a small market. He moved on to bigger and better things, eventually becoming a Chicago radio legend. In the interview he said that radio is dying. The future is, what he called, "WiFi radio", which I can only assume would be Internet Radio. For a guy who made a great career out of terrestrail radio, that really surprised me. Especially since the interview was from 2008.
Click to expand...

At least the guy spoke the truth since people in younger demographics tend to use their Iphones more for music.
 
I had a conversation with a well-known talk host that is waiting out the end of a contract that will taking the new show to the Internet. No 7-second delay and the chance to do what they want and reach a very healthy audience.
 
'Is internet radio "REAL radio?'

That's a difficult question. There are thousands of broadcasters on the web: real professionals with slick jingles and processing, 10 year olds doing it as a hobby, and everything in between. And among the bunch of 10/11/12 year olds, there will be some possible future professionals, making entertaining radio, although it's a little bit immature at the moment. Where will you draw the line?

In other words: what's the definition of 'real radio'?
 
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/newbay/rw_20110518/index.php?startid=26


Here's a link to a Radio World article about my Internet station, Big D Country, that was published in the May 18 issue. You might find it interesting.

I also come from a terrestrial radio background. I am a potential applicant for an LPFM station, but
in the meantime, am programming the Internet station for the North Florida/South Georgia market.

I'm on the air live 22 hours per week, including a weekday 7 am to 11 am (Eastern) show, complete with traffic, road closures and delays, weather, and community events.
 
bobperry said:
I had a conversation with a well-known talk host that is waiting out the end of a contract that will taking the new show to the Internet. No 7-second delay and the chance to do what they want and reach a very healthy audience.
Click to expand...

I've been running a business on the net for about 8 years, and I've learned that the ability to "reach a healthy audience," and actually making an impact with that audience are two very different things. My OTA businesses have more impact than the internet. The main trick is getting them to find your station in the first place.

So it depends on point of view. If the goal is having a platform to speak, the internet is a fine place. Everyone can have their own radio station and do what they want...at least for now. But because there are so so so many stations, and the stations also compete with Pandora, Spotify, iPods, and streams, you're sharing that audience with lots of other folks. As I often say, one day we'll all have our own radio stations, each with an audience of one.
 
i believe that internet radio is The Future Of Radio cause theres going be so money more way to tune in to a station in the next 5 years and does help also to have a niche station we are a dirty south rap station and we have stuck to our format over the last 10 yeas we have been doing really good with our number in the last 4 to 5 years
 
yeah u got have a nitch to make it right now we steping out real soon to build our radio studio
 
To be honest, I was quite afraid when I had to change Good Vibrations - just four months online at the moment, so, still in the developing phase - from a 'hardcore' summer format into a more general, almost Hot AC oriented format. That hardcore summer format worked quite well when the sun shined, but the ratings dropped immediately when it was raining.

With a few twists (keeping a subtle summer feel, focussing on music with a relaxed, often slightly funky vibe and focussing on people with musical roots in the 1988-1995 era), I manage to keep an own sound. But when I started changing the format, I was very afraid to sound like almost everybody else. :)
 
Wwzapper said:
'Is internet radio "REAL radio?'

That's a difficult question. There are thousands of broadcasters on the web: real professionals with slick jingles and processing, 10 year olds doing it as a hobby, and everything in between. And among the bunch of 10/11/12 year olds, there will be some possible future professionals, making entertaining radio, although it's a little bit immature at the moment. Where will you draw the line?

In other words: what's the definition of 'real radio'?
Click to expand...

I'll agree that there are many on the Internet that don't have a clue as to what they are doing.

Internet radio can be an honest radio alternative to terrestrial radio, especially with the advent of the smart phone and some of the recent advances for Internet radio in today's automobiles. I'm looking forward to the future and what it will bring.
 
In my opinion, if it sounds professional Like "Real Radio"
then internet radio can be real radio.

If it sounds like the hosts are having fun, then its real radio.

The internet has given people an opportunity to bring radio back the way it used to be, fun.

Then you have the people that have absolutely no business being on any size shape or form of radio that operate the dirtiest stations you've ever heard.
 
nitnitr said:
I'll agree that there are many on the Internet that don't have a clue as to what they are doing.

Internet radio can be an honest radio alternative to terrestrial radio, especially with the advent of the smart phone and some of the recent advances for Internet radio in today's automobiles. I'm looking forward to the future and what it will bring.
Click to expand...

Agreed on both accounts --- Heck there are folks running terrestrial radio that "dont know what their doing" (but its still considered radio)
 
Internet audio never radiates, it must be pushed or pulled from one IP address to another, chunk by chunk,
with each packet handled by the electronic equivalent of an express company, mostly over some sort of
a "pipe", with each chunk having seperate shipping documentation, and needing to be reassembled
at the receiving end.

Radio is a directly radiating modulation method whereby immediately passively decodable audio
becomes impressed upon a signal of some useful wavelength, the information being both
impressed upon the carrier, and audible to the listener, in real-time.


Yes, I agree the result is audio either way, but to me internet audio is like canned vegetables vs fresh.
Yes, I do listen to internet audio, but can never think of it as radio.
This morning at 9 AM when KXEL Waterloo Iowa 1540 was booming into Chicago hours after sunrise, that's radio.

Internet audio seems to me to more like managed outcome pay for play audio service.
Radio, on the other hand seems more a "sport" like surfing, where nothing is ever guaranteed but
the uncertaintly itself is a big part of the challenge and reward.

How fun was it to listen in 1990 when I was 500 miles from home and had a friend put
my shortwave pirate station on the air? Pretty darn fun.
Internet audio is fun, but not THAT fun.
 
Tom Wells said:
Internet audio never radiates, it must be pushed or pulled from one IP address to another, chunk by chunk,
with each packet handled by the electronic equivalent of an express company, mostly over some sort of
a "pipe", with each chunk having seperate shipping documentation, and needing to be reassembled
at the receiving end.
Click to expand...


So I would take it based on your logic.. IBOC "Digital" Radio is not really Radio? since it's digital 1s and 0s put back together at the decoding end? (the recv)
 
If it cannot be heard in real time, and must be reassembled by an active method by a cpu and buffers, then
it has had its radio-ness stripped off.

Iboc is a data transmission method. No more, no less.
 
Tom Wells...what a great description of what Internet radio is...sadly there is a lot of "real radio" that booms after sunrise only to deliver canned product, syndicated from one cluster to the next.

I do not take exception with your statements at all as I see radio as a whole, both net and terrestrial in that same landscape.

I do think of internet radio like FM radio in say 1963...it wasn't openly available in all cars, radio companies had no clue what to do with the FM flame throwers they had...so they just sort of regurgitated info from one source to the next....until AOR took root...I think Internet radio needs an AOR awakening to legitimize it to the masses.

In no way shape or form is Internet radio the same as "real radio"...in fact it is more powerful and able to connect at levels far greater than am/fm/xm or any other _m ever dreamed possible.
 
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