I attended the annual RAIN Internet Radio Summit in Las Vegas this past Sunday and am excited that the growth of web-based radio is becoming more and more solid, particularly with listenership on smartphones and new techologies revolving around safe listening in vehicles. Our stations have seen a steady growth trend especially over the last year to the point where we now have a viable salable audience; this combined with the ability to target advertising to listeners worldwide based on their IP addresses actually gives Internet radio an edge. Over the seven years our flagship station Radio Bop has been webcasting, we have focused on quality of programming and audio delivery with the business potential merely an afterthought; nonetheless, the amount of investment to date totals much more than anticipated because growth means higher streaming and licensing costs. As a result, in order to keep doing what we do, we have to either beg (donations/subscription model), borrow (which we've done but we gotta find some way to pay it back), or steal (loosely, i.e., take some programming time and convert it into paid advertising). This is a tough decision to make, but we are going the advertising route in order to cover our costs and maybe recoup some of our investment. Our plan is to phase in PSAs over the next few months, limiting ourselves to 3 1-minute breaks per hour whereas commercials will be inserted over the PSAs by our advertising partners when we start the program. We will continue to invest any earnings from our operations back into programming because our longer-term goal is to go live 24/7 to entertain our listeners worldwide with the best-sounding radio ever in the genres we are in. If you are a listener, thanks for your support and understanding as we give up roughly one song an hour in order to stay afloat and position ourselves for the future.
I am very excited about our two newest stations launching hopefully in the next 2-3 months, The TOP 40 Time Clock based on Bill Drake's vision of "The REAL Soundtrack of Your (Baby Boomer) Life!" and Musicradio Bop 70s which will be a refreshing musical entre into the 70s decade...stay tuned!
Harold Levine, Creator/Program Director, The Bop Radio Group
I am very excited about our two newest stations launching hopefully in the next 2-3 months, The TOP 40 Time Clock based on Bill Drake's vision of "The REAL Soundtrack of Your (Baby Boomer) Life!" and Musicradio Bop 70s which will be a refreshing musical entre into the 70s decade...stay tuned!
Harold Levine, Creator/Program Director, The Bop Radio Group