LAUNCHING A SUCCESSFUL INTERNET RADIO STATION

[radiojomo]

It's great that I found a Webcasting board on Radio-Info! I'm usually always over at the terrestrial radio boards and I need some help from everyone interested in internet radio.
In a few months, I am going to launch a CHR/Top 40 internet radio station for my company. My company is a social networking site that needs some new traffic, and launching this station is going to be a way to gain traffic (the station is going to be listed on iTunes). We are working with a high profile streaming company that will offer the station in a flash player on the website and on an mp3 stream for backup/iTunes support and possibly AAC encoding.
My questions for you guys is (if you can help me out):
1. Where do people first hear about most internet radio stations?
2. What important elements should an internet radio station follow compared to a terrestrial radio station?
3. Will having a mixshow on an internet Top 40 attract listeners?
4. I plan on adding on-air personalities (which will most likely be me and a few friends who actually have radio experience), I haven't heard of many online only stations having personalities, will this attract advertisers and listeners?
5. Does internet radio bring good advertising deals?

If you can't answer everyone, it's ok. I just need some help on these kinds of questions.
Thanks!

 

[V.Riley]

Okay, here is may take on your questions. Someone else may have a different opinion.

1. Where do people first hear about most internet radio stations?

Either by word of mouth, Google (or other search engine), or by going to shoutcast.com and iTunes searching for the genre of station they are looking for. You could also search for Internet Radio Directory listing sites and try to add your station on them as well.

2. What important elements should an internet radio station follow compared to a terrestrial radio station?

People listen to Internet Radio stations because they usually have more music, more variety, and less commercials and less talk. You may want to include station imaging (sweepers, jingles, liners, station ID) so it has a professional sound, and the station ID so they know what they are listening to so when they want to find it again, they know how to get back to it (i.e. web address, station name).

3. Will having a mixshow on an internet Top 40 attract listeners?

Top 40 is good, however, you will most likely want to play more than just the "current" top 40 songs as they will get to sounding very repetitive in short time. Maybe throw in top 40 songs from the past 5 years or more so you have the new tunes, plus the fairly recent tunes. Mix them so you get the ratio of current and recurrent songs you like.

4. I plan on adding on-air personalities (which will most likely be me and a few friends who actually have radio experience), I haven't heard of many online only stations having personalities, will this attract advertisers and listeners?

Having on-air personalities will set you apart from most internet stations who just run their iPods on shuffle play, and the listeners can bond with those personalities which means they will be more likely to return to your station. However, keep in mind that the listeners of internet radio like more music, less talk in general, so you may want to make sure that your personalities don't talk too much. How much is too much? Well, how much talk would you be willing to put up with when you are wanting to hear music, before you would want to change stations. Find out what that threshold is and then I'd recommend knocking a third off of it. So if by 3 minutes of talk you are ready to change stations, then only let your personalities talk for 2 minutes.

5. Does internet radio bring good advertising deals?

Good deals? Well that depends. Internet Radio cost money to run, with hosting and royalties, but it is much cheaper than terrestrial radio. You can't expect to charge the same amount to advertisers that you would as an FM station, but you do need to charge something. What you should do is calculate your cost based on your hosting and royalties and any other cost involved with running your internet station, then divide that cost by the amount of advertising slots you want to have during your hours/dayparts/days/month (depending on how you want to do your spot pricing). For instance, you may want to find out when your peak listener times are and then give those times a higher percentage of advertising cost when compared to your lower listener volume times. What price do you set? Well you should at least make sure your advertising cost covers your expenses, but you may not be able to do that right off the bat, as your listener base will still be growing and you may have to cover any difference with your own money. Keep in mind that you most likely won't be able to sell all your advertising slots, even FM stations have that problem. The simple formula is (your cost + what the market will allow). In other words, you can't expect to charge FM advertising prices for an Internet Radio station.

It would be a good idea to gather listener data. It's doubtful you will be able to get income, race, age and gender data but the basics like how many listener hours for a 30 day period, peak listener hours and maybe where the majority of your listeners are coming from and on average how long they listen is good data to have if advertisers ask, or better yet that you can wave in front of there faces. In the beginning you may find it easier to get local advertisers than big corporate advertisers. However, unless you are running just a local community internet radio station, the larger corporate businesses that are known in a larger region or nationally would most likely gain the most from advertising on internet radio.

As I said, these are my opinions and experiences, others may have a different take on your questions. Good luck and if you find tips and tricks along your way, please share with the rest of us.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

You are attempting to do something that is very new. Oh, some will say: "I've been doing this now for six years. What do you mean by NEW?"

Radio has been at it for what now.... 90 years? Today we look back on those early years... with admiration, with puzzlement, with a thought of "what were they thinking?". YOU are attempting to be a pioneer and if you think about it, as the pioneers crossed our country there were no road maps, no handbooks on how to do it.

But you know that.

Continue to do what you did by posting here. Remain curious. Remain hungry for input. But be wary. Most of the input you get will be from people who do not know more than you do.

Here is the only piece of "meat" I have to offer in this conversation. Do spend some time also tracking what traditional "brick and mortar" broadcasters are saying and thinking as they poke around this Internet contraption trying to figure out if it is their friend or their enemy. Some are saying that the future of "audio on the Internet" is NOT in streaming a traditional radio programming style. Well, thanks a lot. What is the future then?

Someone operating out of their basement or their bedroom has just as much opportunity to develop "the magic formulas" as does the corporate brain-trust operating in some high-rise office building. I have a feeling a lot of traditional broadcasters say to themselves (where no one else can hear them) some mornings as they shave: "Well, we know one thing, the FUTURE is NOT in "grinding records" as we used to say back in the 60s."

 

[RadioMan203]

Something else to keep in mind is I don't believe iTunes currently supports AAC streaming so you may have to have a secondary stream for your iTunes feed.

 

[gunterm]

Yep, only iPhones and Touches support AAC at this time. I don't know if I would say that it's cheaper, when you add up the royalties plus the server costs it is in the thosands per month (roughly $1 per listener).

Meanwhile a 1 kW transmitter costs about 800$ in power/month to operate I believe?

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Yep, only iPhones and Touches support AAC at this time. I don't know if I would say that it's cheaper, when you add up the royalties plus the server costs it is in the thosands per month (roughly $1 per listener).

Meanwhile a 1 kW transmitter costs about 800$ in power/month to operate I believe?

Someone posted an interesting commentary yesterday, and I don't remember whether it was on Radio-Info or elsewhere. Some of the Internet streaming folks were defending the effort in congress to require that broadcasters pay a royalty that would go to the recording industry with some trickle-down to the performing artists. The Internet Streaming guy or trade group said that imposing the royalty on broadcasters would make the playing field level between Internet folks and transmitter folks.

The commentator suggest that when Internet folks start paying a fee to the FCC everything they want to change something or relicense, and when they started keeping a government mandated Public File, and when they bought and maintained as EAS receiver and all the procedures that go with that, then maybe there would be a level playing field. Hmmmm..... I'm still chewing on that one.

To say that "it only costs about $800 for electricity to run the transmitter" overlooks property taxes on the transmitter, a plot of land to plant and nurture the tower and antenna, (and more property taxes). Overlooks EEO files, ads and booths at job fairs. Overlooks Public Files and some kind of at least pretend to survey the public needs of the community.

I can see where if a business model built on the Internet can be made to work why people would flock there to build their enterprise to escape a lot of fees and hassle. (The most successful broadcaster I ever worked for dreamed of the day he could buy a funeral home and have a business where the government wasn't there to tell him how to do it. Maybe my career there came to an end because I giggled and reminded him that some government agency would show up and measure the depth of the newly dug grave and write him up for being 3 inches too shallow. By the way, he did get his funeral home he wanted. I don't know how that worked out.)

Gunterm: I'm not picking a fight with you. Your post is a door for us to walk through if we want to fully explore the differences between traditional dispersion of our audio-product vs. Internet dispersion of the noise we make.

 

[gunterm]

No offense taken Goat, I don't really know what it costs to run terrestrial since I can't afford to buy one yet

I believe you are referring to Tim Westergren from Pandora radio advocating heavy royalty fees on terrestrial radio, his comments are at www.kurthanson.com the RAIN newsletter. While I do read it, my main problem with Kurt's newsletter is he focuses almost exlusively on services that are NOTHING like radio, "pureplay" automated playlist crap like Pandora and AccuRadio, LastFM etc. but it's still a good place for general internet radio info that no one else is covering right now.

 

[radiojomo]

Thanks for all the help guys! And I will look forward to you guys for more aid on this project soon.

About AAC/MP3 encoding on iTunes:
This is something else I need help on. My plan is to start with an MP3 (96 KBPS) stream in order to have it open in iTunes and try to get it in the iTunes radio listings. When we have loyal listeners and they get directed to listen on the website, we'll start encoding in AAC at 32 KBPS where listeners can access the stream through the station.

 

[radioboy]

I used to manage a 5kw AM daytimer, and it cist roughly $5k a month in expenses. $800 a month in
utilities was about what it did cost..maybe a 1kw would be a little less than that.

To the original poster:

I began my Internet station in 2001, before streaming was the "in" thing to do. Most of the radio broadcasters here didn't even know what it was. The local newspaper came out and did a story
because for our area, it was an area of uncharted waters, so to speak.

There were a lot of bugs and glitches at that time! I used a 5-disc CD changer to stay on overnights, for
example, because I didn't know anything about ripping CDs to create mp3s. No one else here did either.
So there was no place to go to ask these kinds of questions.

Word of mouth is probably the best advertising. You can probably also get listed by going to online radio directories and asking to be included.

Live shows will definitely set you apart. Just not too much talk.

I've not had much luck at attracting advertisers no matter what I did!

A Radio World article this week states that the bulk of listeners like simple, simple straight-ahead Internet radio over the interactive ones that let listeners create their own playlist. In other words, they like the radio station sound, but with more creative elements.

I wish you the best and will be happy to answer any other questions that come up.

 

[radiookc]

Any sucessfull station gets that way by building a relationship with the listeners,
being LOCAL and being active in the community that they serve.

Itunes is a great way to get your station out there, but who are you trying to reach?
What will you tell the people who invest their cash in your station that you will
send to them? I have made it a point NOT to list my station on ITunes because I
dont want a slot that could be used locally going to someone in Uganda.

We are internet based but focused on Oklahoma City. People can listen from elsewhere
and that's cool if they find us, but I need to focus on my local market. One on one
contact with local advertisers and listeners is where it is at if you want to survive.

I spent 20 years in radio. Expect your project NOT to be embraced by your peers. Web
radio people think AM/FM radio people are snobs, AM/FM people act like web radio
people don't exist. Prepare to lose money for a while.

Good luck


Chris
www.radiookc.com

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Any sucessfull station gets that way by building a relationship with the listeners,
being LOCAL and being active in the community that they serve.

Itunes is a great way to get your station out there, but who are you trying to reach?
What will you tell the people who invest their cash in your station that you will
send to them? I have made it a point NOT to list my station on ITunes because I
dont want a slot that could be used locally going to someone in Uganda.

In a sense, Chris, you have drawn a line across the middle of the room. And that is a good thing. It is an issue that everyone in radio, in Internet streaming and any other device for distributing audio contents needs to face, and decide which side of the line they stand on. Trying to straddle the line is probably non-productive.

What is community? Social workers talk about it. Church people talk about it.

To YOU, local, the geography right around you is community when it comes to distributing your audio. You have a mental image of what kind of sound might appeal to the person you would bump into at the hardware store where you are buying a garden hose. That has always been my focus in what I want to do, and think maybe I understand about traditional radio. With a radio transmitter, unless you have big power at night, you can only reach local, or expanded local. With the Internet, a person in Uganda or Uruguay can reach out and find you with the same ease as the guy who gave you a good tip on the garden hose down at Ace Hardware.

To a lot of people who chat on this discussion site, community is about shared interest. Community is a group of people who like the same art or like the same music. There are a number of people in this discussion who are not geography focused but are content focused and that usually means MUSIC, wall to wall music. They are just as thrilled (maybe more thrilled) to find they have a fan for their stream in Australia as they are to find out that the guy at Ace Hardware likes their music or other content.

People asking questions here, and offering suggestions here, would do us all a favor if they gently including hints on which mindset they are working from.

Here is what adds a lot of static to our efforts to have these conversations: radio as we know it today in the US has stirred up the "community" concept to the point all of us are swimming in muddy water. Today's FM allocations allow stations to reach out 60 miles or so typically, which in many areas may be 8 or 10 counties (or parts there of) which may mean coverage of 60 or more towns, villages, municipalities.... and what... maybe 36 different high schools. In that scenario, who is your community, who is your local?

How can radio today be local, be community when they won't or can't define who they serve. Try and define them and those who feel left out hate you. So radio becomes a lot like a person who will not admit (even to themselves) whether they are male or female.

On the Internet.... YOU get to define your "community" and nobody need be pissed-off because they got left out.

 

[radiookc]

Points taken.

I think the point I was trying to make was in the original post.

Don't get me wrong. I am thrilled when someone from out of
state or overseas listens, emails or becomes a fan of my
station on facebook. I do consider radio in whatever form as
a art form. I am thrilled when I see a listener in the UK embrace
a local band from Oklahoma City or Tulsa that I play. The global
reach is nice.

If one is planning to make web radio their source of income
(i have not), then the best thing you can do is have a plan.
Both web and am/fm radio is subject to failure without a
plan.

I think it's awesome that there are many web radio
people that are pushing the envelope and bringing something
new to the table. When commercial radio giants fail due to
enormous debt (that they did not plan for), some of the
gifted talent on the web my find a home on the dial.

Being a "local" station landed me a "presents" on a concert
for a international act that my station plays. I dont think
would have landed this if I just had a good mix of music.

If you have a hunger to do internet radio, tackle it and have
fun. I am.

Chris
www.radiookc.com

 

[rickityone]

One thing I haven't seen here is how we define success. Is it in number of listeners we attract per hour, per day, per week, how long they stay, do they write us letters - so and so forth.

Take a good look at the shoutcast statistics page and also at the old style shoutcast tune in page page (black and red screen - get there at the top left of the current shoutcast screen). There are some eye openers there. The shoutcast statistics show how many listeners and tune ins for more than five minutes. For me a five minute tune in is in essence nothing, but they are interesting statistics. You well see that some stations, like skyfm.com may have four or five thousand listeners at one time. Now shoutcast 11,000 stations. Very few, according to their stats pull numbers even close to that.

Another number that is interesting and only shows up on the old shoutcast screen is the number of connections people sign up for. Each connection costs money by the way. People building internet stations sign up for wild numbers of connections. You will see plenty of stations with 100, 200,300 connections and three listeners.

If you build it "they will not come." You will have to figure out how to attract potential listeners. Plenty of suggestions above. For myself, we've even bought little goggle ads keyed to various words. They helped. There are a million search engines for internet radio. You have to patiently search them out and get your station listed. Start with your friends - send them e-mails.

Me and my partner watched as very well known - famous radio programmer - announced the soon to be construction of a station to be located in a bar in Mexico - the station was to be owned, operated by and featuring a huge rock star - press releases galore, custom jingles, offerings of "stream their cast us" etc. Opening night they had 2,500 slots. We were there. They drew 500 listeners. Actually fabulous. Over the course of time, and quickly I might add they were down to 200 slots and three listeners on the average. No doubt at least one a studio monitor. Eventually they disappeared from Shoutcast and re-emerged on Live365 - I suspect because they didn't like having people see the tiny audience they attracted.

We had those same dreams - we knew we could do it - well - we have learned that one really doesn't know any secret formula to success in broadcasting. You will work very hard to carve out a niche and be proud when your 24 hour average stats starts hitting just double digits. To get to just that level means you might have hundreds of tune ins in a day.

There also hasn't been much mentioned about the technical aspects of internet broadcasting. There is a lot that is out of your control and a lot going on in the streaming process. Even bad weather can bring your stream down, usually when you have a full house. When your stream is unreliable you can count on this, you'll be starting over everyday. People tune you right out and soon don't tune back in - why would they? Who wants to listen to buffering?

Computer problems, I am writing this while waiting for one of our computers to go through a repair process that is very slow ... it's endless.

Don't forget the money aspect either. It's not cheap to run one of the things. Why do computer screens and Back UPS seem to fail at the same? Music - why yes we do buy it. 99 cents at a time. Stream fees, dsl lines, Portal fees on and on. Be prepared to spend.

It's hard work - but yet somehow it remains fun. The creative flow, making a "sound" - getting to listen to tons of music, finding great songs, putting them on the air, the love letters from listeners, comments from folks on the street.

Building an internet radio station is an exercise in eating humble pie. Once we get humble - well - I love pie so we rock on.

Rickity
gulchradio.com

 

[9vRadio]

I have been thinking of starting an internet radio station/site, and all the posts here have been very helpful...and very frightening at the same time. I have been in the radio biz for 40 years and now want to have some fun with internet radio. Can it be fun without spending a small fortune in operating costs each month ? Are royalties something that you have to pay even if you have no advertising, and if so, isn't internet radio doomed to fail with these fees? It seems like someone like me, who is fed up with the way the biz is going, and wants to enjoy programming an internet format, doesn't have a chance in hell! I would appreciate any info you can give me...an PLEASE excuse the lack of knowledge on this subject. I am trying to get up to speed on it. Thanks

 

[V.Riley]

Well welcome to the club. I'd say most of us do this for the love of music, as currently the money is mostly outgo, little income.

If you play music, you most likely have to pay royalties on it, regardless of you run advertising or not. Since you are just starting up, you most likely would want to look at LIVE365, SWCast or LoudCity, as they will take care of most of your licensing for you. If you go with LIVE365 they will provide your streaming host. The down fall for LIVE365 however is that they are a bit more pricey than the other two (even when you consider you'd have to find your own streaming server with the other two), not to mention LIVE365 has restrictions like, like no advertising, and you are limited to the packages they have (no pick and choose options).

While some Internet Radio stations (the big boys) have struck deals with SoundExchange, the smaller stations have yet to strike a deal that provides a chance for growth. In fact IMO, all the deals are sub-par. Look at KurtHanson.com for the latest info about the royalty issues. Yesterday there was mention of a meeting that would affect Terrestrial Radio up to 25% of Revenue to cover royalties. This would force most Terrestrial Radio stations to switch to talk formats, as it would bankrupt them. The alternative involves 801(b) which just might save Internet Radio as well if they use it for Royalty Parity. Here's hoping!

 

[radiojomo]

Well, I'm sad to say this, but the funding for this internet radio station project has been cut and will no longer take place. I had worked on the playlist and even contacted some content providers and I got a "no go" from my boss. But I am still heavily interested in running an internet radio operation on a smaller scale in the future so thanks for all the info you guys. You guys are awesome and I'll let you know when my smaller scale station is on the air!

 

[radioboy]

To 9vRadio and Radiojomo,

This internet radio thing can be quite frightening. When I started my station I didn't even know you needed
to rip CDs and convert them to mp3s. So I didn't. I operated for a limited number of hours (about 12 a day)
and did the whole thing live.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I'm in my 8th year of streaming. There is no boss. There is no
corporate office.

I ran my station for about 3 years while still holding down a terrestrial radio job. Now that it has ended, my wife
would REALLY like for it to make a bit more income! So I keep at it, because I really don't know how to do anything but radio.

As far as costs, the station itself (streaming fees, royalties) run around $147. The DSL runs around $100. Because
the DSL is also used for other things, including my wife's computer) we pay the Internet line out of the household budget. The station expemses are paid out of the station's bank account. My station is a PRO level, allowing me to sell advertising. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. It's not a reliable source of income - at least not right now.

But with 56,417 streams launched - I'm not ready to call it a failure. I'm gonna keep going as long as I can afford to.

 

[radiojomo]

I actually do some hobby online broadcasting using an old copy of the SAM Broadcaster and Listen 2 My Radio. Here's the link: jomosjukebox.listen2myradio.com. I run an alternative format, if it's not working it's because I'm probably running it. I try to DJ but most of the time I just use voiceovers etc.

 

[rickityone]

I figure the budget for our stream at $300 per month. That includes buying music - which we do.

We use LoudCity and recommend them highly - recently they began to offer streaming at good rates. When you've got problems they respond. In contrast to other services. LoudCity does not insert an opening and annoying pitch for themselves when listeners tune in. That's a big plus, nor do they limit listener time making them tune back in - annoying at best.

I recommend StreamGuys for a truly professional stream provider. We use a port 80 stream and Streamguys service is outstanding, they have spent countless hours with me trying to resolve stream problems - which have always ended up being the stream carriers problems (Qwest). Many NPR stations and NPR itself rely on StreamGuys.

It's a somewhat expensive hobby, but my wife is a quilter and I very sure that her madness is more expensive than mine. When compared to the cost of speedboats, motorcycle racing, even backpacking gear it doesn't look so bad ... and it can consume all your "free time."

Rock on
rickity
gulchradio.com

 

[murphmac]

I run two internet stations. Both are on i-tunes and on Live 365. One station is Oldies - It's called Edgewater Radio. I play a loarge variety of oldies from the 50's to the 80's. It's very intensely programmed. Sweepers, jingles, PSA's news and even DJ's at times. It does cost about $3,500 a year to run but as was mentioned, this is much cheaper than terrestrial radio. I also run a contemporary country station which is also on i-tunes and live 365. Both stations do well listener wise. The oldies stations has about 50,000 listeners a month and the country station is growing and growing and now has about 72,000 listeners a month. I invite you to check out both of them and I would be happy to help answer any other questions that you may have.

Edgewater Radio

www.edgewaterradio.freeservers.com
or
www.live365.com/stations/theedge1630
or
i-tunes under radio then Golden Oldies.


Constant Country KRS

www.edgewaterradio.freeservers.com
or
www.live365.com/stations/constantcountry89
or
i-tunes under the Radio, then country category