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Streaming

S

Skynet74

What are the expenses involved in Radio stations who stream their signal? How inexpensively can this be done? I'm also not clear on something very important. That would be royalty fees to the music industry. I guess webcasters pay less than regular terrestrial broadcasters? I'm not even sure. All I know is that I am starting my own internet station soon. As a matter of fact I have been running tests and streaming a signal for the last 12 hours. Not giving out an address since I'm just testing. Sounds great so far. The ultimate format of my station may not even involve a lot of music anyway. It's a work in progress and we'll see how it goes. Just wanted to ask some questions first. Thanks
 
I found so much info on youtube today about getting your own internet radio station running. It's ridiculously easy. I think everybody interested in radio should do it. Of course the proper software to make it all come together is very important as well. Many stations use prophet. I found other automation software that many broadcasters say is just as good (if not better) and it's only a tiny fraction of the price. Now I am on the right path. Finding a streaming partner that allows for unlimited streams for free sure has helped as well. Now my bandwidth is not even an issue. They handle it. Learned some great things today. This is definitely the day and age where broadcasting from anywhere is possible. I love technology :)
 
You may want to look into this site for licensing, they are the most affordable for royalties that I've found on the Internet:
http://www.swcast.net/broadcast/licensing.html

Live365.com also offers licensing plans for subscribers to their services:
Live365 Hosting Info

To find a good streaming host (if you decide not to go with Live365 and deal with royalties via alternative methods), try here:
http://www.radiotoolbox.com/hosts/

For my streaming station (Rock401.com), I use makeavoice.com for shoutcast hosting and I use MegaSeg on a Mac for my automation software. I've been using MegaSeg since it was in beta circa 1998 when I was GM and Tech Director over at WXIN @ RIC.
 
I'm experimenting with ustream right now. It seems that there isn't a limit on simultaneous streams. It appears that there are No limits on streams at all. I could have an audience of 1000 or more simultaneous listeners. Plus the site is FREE. They even offer an embed code where I could just stick it on my website to broadcast. Sounds to good to be true, but I've been runnning tests on it all weekend and I'm not finding a down side yet.
 
Ok I was just on ustream and one of the channels currently has 9818 Live Viewers. The amazing thing is that it was just someone broadcasting a feed of a Video Game. It didn't appear to be anything very compelling at all. For a regular guy broadcasting a stream, that is a huge audience. Almost 10,000 viewers at the same time! So it looks like ustream does indeed offer an unlimited stream. Once again... I need to repeat this. Unlimited stream for FREE! Any of you guys with an internet radio station might want to look into this as a way to save a ton of dough on streaming. Run some tests and with some luck it may be something that you can use. http://www.ustream.tv
 
Skynet74 said:
Ok I was just on ustream and one of the channels currently has 9818 Live Viewers. The amazing thing is that it was just someone broadcasting a feed of a Video Game. It didn't appear to be anything very compelling at all. For a regular guy broadcasting a stream, that is a huge audience. Almost 10,000 viewers at the same time! So it looks like ustream does indeed offer an unlimited stream. Once again... I need to repeat this. Unlimited stream for FREE! Any of you guys with an internet radio station might want to look into this as a way to save a ton of dough on streaming. Run some tests and with some luck it may be something that you can use. http://www.ustream.tv
Click to expand...

From: http://www.ustream.tv/terms

3. Copyrighted Materials:

No Unauthorized Use. YOU WILL NOT USE THE SITE OR SERVICES TO TRANSMIT, ROUTE, PROVIDE CONNECTIONS TO OR STORE ANY MATERIAL THAT INFRINGES COPYRIGHTED WORKS OR OTHERWISE VIOLATES OR PROMOTES THE VIOLATION OF THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS OF ANY THIRD PARTY. Ustream.tv has adopted and implemented a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of the accounts of users or Members who repeatedly infringe or are believed to be infringing the rights of copyright holders. Please see the Ustream.tv Copyright and IP Policy for further information.

Sounds pretty straightforward that UStream does not consider themselves a provider for copyrighted materials, including music...

Plus, by using UStream, you're missing out on being able to be listened to by most mobile devices over 3G. Just about every smartphone supports Shoutcast MP3/AAC+ via various apps... UStream does have a mobile app, however, they only make more popular streams available over their mobile app, the last time I checked.
 
Well the Copyright guidelines are definitely something to consider. I understand with Live365.com they offer a blanket license. Plus I think they support mobile apps. Currently I'm testing out different companies for streaming. The website itself will be a piece of cake to build. No big deal there. The important thing is getting my signal out to the world in a reliable inexpensive way. Of course I'm not looking to infringe on copyrights either. So all things will be considered.

Lucky for me I'm planning on something pretty unique in the way of programming. I don't intend on being a straight forward music station. I plan on offering more of a variety format with programming that people can't hear anywhere else. So music may be minimal anyway. My thoughts on this are that people can get regular songs from anywhere. Name any song. I can type it into youtube and hear it in 5 seconds. So it's kind of difficult to motivate a lot of people to tune into an internet station unless it offers something different. I'm not saying that there aren't MUSIC stations with good amounts of traffic. I'm sure that there is. But I feel like if I offer the same exact thing as everyone else, why would people listen to me over the competition? I want to be creative with my station. It's very difficult to be creative with a music show. What do you do, Play the songs in a different order? LoL

Well thanks for all the imput. It will all come together in time. I appreciate it.
 
Skynet74 said:
Yes...I believe that WALE doesn't stream anymore. I think it's reasonable to believe they'll never stream again....LOL.
Click to expand...

It's truly unbelievable that in the year 2010 WALE (or any other small station that sounds like crap with a poor online presence) can't get itself together in terms of technology. Their web site is a joke, it doesn't sound like they have any sort of automation, no online stream, etc... We're not talking big bucks here. You could build a very basic, good sounding automation system for less than $1000, redirect your domain to a free wordpress blog, stream for less than $1000 a year for a relatively decent number of concurrent listeners. You can get free domain e-mail services through Google. If someone was there who knew they were doing, they could run the station with maybe one other person in terms of programming (sales is another story) It's kind of pathetic when you think about it....
 
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