Is it worth streaming your small market station?

[Groove1670]

Is it worth streaming your small/medium market station? I know many have said no, or have dropped streaming, or others that say it is necessary.

Anyone care to share the some info they are streaming:

How you are keeping their costs down.

Any helpful tips.

What are the benefits for your station.

Or if you plan to drop streaming in the future because you don't see it working for your station.

Please comment only if you own or program a AM/FM station. Thanks

 

[Chuck]

For some stations, a good compromise is streaming local sports broadcasts and other locally originated talk programming that is of interest to your community. You will get on line listeners for that, (especially football) and you won't have to deal with Sound Exchange.

 

[TheBigA]

I think it's a really tough decision. The FCC and the RIAA have put small owners in a bad situation. On the one hand, they both speak out in favor of small owners and against big conglomerates. But the reality is that their rules favor big companies. Analysts say the future is in streaming. But the numbers don't work unless you aggregate somehow. Even Clear Channel has had to do that.

 

[Small Market Guy]

Please comment only if you own or program a AM/FM station. Thanks

Well, since I don't actually OWN or PROGRAM the station cluster I work for, I guess you don't want to know that my boss thinks it's not worth it. Mainly due to music royalties. Or that my previous station, an FM talk station, did stream and people loved it.

 

[sino]

I would say it is only worth only in case you start some kind of social media campaign to increase the popularity in the web. The biggest problem might be that if you really want to go into his direction you have to do without local stuff - the (hopefully) listeners from the whole world obviously won't be interested in that.

 

[northwoods21stcentury]

I think it's a really tough decision. The FCC and the RIAA have put small owners in a bad situation. On the one hand, they both speak out in favor of small owners and against big conglomerates. But the reality is that their rules favor big companies. Analysts say the future is in streaming. But the numbers don't work unless you aggregate somehow. Even Clear Channel has had to do that.

Typical of the FCC and the RIAA talking out of both sides of their mouths.

 

[northwoods21stcentury]

For some stations, a good compromise is streaming local sports broadcasts and other locally originated talk programming that is of interest to your community. You will get on line listeners for that, (especially football) and you won't have to deal with Sound Exchange.

That actually makes sense.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

For some stations, a good compromise is streaming local sports broadcasts and other locally originated talk programming that is of interest to your community. You will get on line listeners for that, (especially football) and you won't have to deal with Sound Exchange.

Sounds like a practical way to deal with the high cost of music licensing for on-line.

When you don't have news or talk or ball games to feed, do you "keep the circuit open" with dead-air and maybe on the quarter hour run an announcement promoting the upcoming "broadcasts"? Does keeping the circuit up but just feeding dead-air run up your streaming costs? I am assuming there is no rule or policy that prevents "feeding dead air" into the Internet circuit.

I can see your scheme working well in small markets.

 

[Groove1670]

I am trying to look at this from a business standpoint, I know several stations that are only streaming local events, which is a good idea.

My opinion: The only purpose I see for streaming is for listeners in your market that don't have access to a radio (in a office) to listen, or if your signal doesn't penetrate a building (for example a concrete structure), or if your signal reachs a a town fine in a car, but is weak in a building or home.

The luxury of someone listening to your signal in Georgia, if your station is in New York is has no benefit to your local market, and only adds additional costs to your monthly bill.

Of course, the big guys will love it in the future if they have a national advertisers and multiple markets.

For the small market operator, it is a moot point.

 

[andydallas]

I probable convinced 300 of the first 500 stations that streamed, that they should stream (long long ago,,ok not really that long ago).. streaming at that time, and today, is mainly for stations in rated markets, where they can give the current station listener more opportunities to listen (increased TSL). In small markets it didn't make a lot of sense, with some exceptions. AM's with very low night power have done great by adding streaming for the local sports/events,, I know of many stations now that stream several different games at the same time, something you can't do with one or two stations (and yes, they make money doing it)

Most of the building penetration problems stations might have in large markets don't exist in the small markets, with a few exceptions, I had a small market stations very interested in streaming, and I ask them why,,it turned out there was a small college in the town, and the dorms were built into a hill, and got no AM reception, and they were important listeners to the AM, so this was a logical way to extend the station into the dorms, which of course had internet connections.

Having a listener in another part of the country/world is 'fun', but thats about it, PD's use to think it was "cool", however GM's didn't care, but when I started talking about giving current listeners more opportunities to listen,,,and with ratings often so close today,,it started to make sense

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I am trying to look at this from a business standpoint, I know several stations that are only streaming local events, which is a good idea.

My opinion: The only purpose I see for streaming is for listeners in your market that don't have access to a radio (in a office) to listen, or if your signal doesn't penetrate a building (for example a concrete structure), or if your signal reachs a a town fine in a car, but is weak in a building or home.

The luxury of someone listening to your signal in Georgia, if your station is in New York is has no benefit to your local market, and only adds additional costs to your monthly bill.

Good post, but I can think of a couple of circumstances that would motivate a small market station to stream at least part of their content.

If your community has a lot of part time residents... a mountain community where people drive in from a city just for the weekend, or ski communities where people own condos and fly in for the weekend, these people would be interested in listening on line if you actually have local information and news on the air. If you just grind music, why would they bother?

What we call home at our household is in the Ozarks. Rural towns with no career oppoortunites. But people who travel back quite often to look after the older generation, and maybe do some upkeep on a place that they will retire to in the not too distant future. Again, if you station has local content, these people would listen on line, would buy from the advertisers when in town, and might suggest names of businesses on the phone where parents and other family members should shop for an item being discussed.

I describing what has to be quite small in the big picture for such stations, but when you are operating these mini-coffee-pot stations, you need to add every little bit of momentum that works.

 

[northwoods21stcentury]

I am trying to look at this from a business standpoint, I know several stations that are only streaming local events, which is a good idea.

My opinion: The only purpose I see for streaming is for listeners in your market that don't have access to a radio (in a office) to listen, or if your signal doesn't penetrate a building (for example a concrete structure), or if your signal reachs a a town fine in a car, but is weak in a building or home.

The luxury of someone listening to your signal in Georgia, if your station is in New York is has no benefit to your local market, and only adds additional costs to your monthly bill.

Of course, the big guys will love it in the future if they have a national advertisers and multiple markets.

For the small market operator, it is a moot point.

Maybe not quite such a moot point to those who listened to the station the old fashioned way when the lived in the area, but then moved away and would like to keep up with listening to their high school sports games or to hear about local news and events.

Although I may not be big into high school sports (yet, my son is only a 4th grader), I liked the post of many stations that stream serveral different games at the same time and make money doing it. Something all small market stations can learn from.

 

[SaltyDog]

Having a listener in another part of the country/world is 'fun', but thats about it, PD's use to think it was "cool", however GM's didn't care, but when I started talking about giving current listeners more opportunities to listen,,,and with ratings often so close today,,it started to make sense

When I listen to radio onlne, it is mostly to listen to out-of-market stations but I never listen to music stations because it sounds the same wherever you live. But streaming certain non-music parts of a broadcast day makes perfect sense to me. I also watch some TV online. Raycom TV in particular has a good tablet app and broadcasts only local shows in the morning and evening. That's fine with me because their local programming is the only part of their broadcast that I want anyway. Like music, I can get the national syndicated stuff anywhere.

 

[Groove1670]

Maybe not quite such a moot point to those who listened to the station the old fashioned way when the lived in the area, but then moved away and would like to keep up with listening to their high school sports games or to hear about local news and events.

Yes nostalgia. How does it benefit the station?

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Yes nostalgia. How does it benefit the station?

When you live out of town, and you listen to the ball game on line, and you call your brother who still lives there and razz him about the performance of the team, you remind him, an advertiser or potential advertiser, that maybe advertising on the radio reaches people.

That may not sound significant, but if there are 100 out of town ex-patriots who listen, and ten of them have ongoing contact with people still living in the listening area, that can change attitudes about radio.