Internet Radio

[JimBruno]

Hello Folks,

I think Internet Radio will change our industry for the better especially when we're able to access it in our cars, where most folks listen to radio!

The primary gate keepers, the labels and their partners, big radio, have done a poor job of allowing great music to be heard. I recently got Satellite Radio and I'm now discovering how much great music is out there! While I'm enjoying Satellite I think that it's only a stop gap for Internet radio and what it will bring to the table for all of us! The future looks bright to me!

How do you feel about it?

Regards,

Jim Bruno

www.SongClasses.com

[carlrich]

I'm exactly the same Jim. I did at one time condsider starting an internet rock radio station but decided against it after looking into the costs to set it up properly and legally.

Lots of great music out there that sadly does not end up in the mainstream.

[john]

Hi

The possibilities are good. Certainly internet radio does provide far more options and potential avenues. As it stands there are a few outstanding issues now that technology is capable of streaming internet radio to your phone:

Quality:

- the actual file quality and transfer rates of the streamed music. I see no reason why this will not improve.

- the quality of the actual music. Many indie artists know little about audio engineering and less about mastering, and they are reluctant to pay for someone to do mastering too.

- the quality of the DJing. Often this is still very amateur.

- the quality of the programming. Stations re not perhaps as discerning as they should be and tend to rely upon what they can play for free only.

To be taken seriously by the general public the quality of music, DJing and programming really needs to be addressed.

From an artist perspective more stations need to be willing to play your music WITHOUT making you sign a waiver. To enable that internet radio needs to be able to financially survive if only that they can pay their bills and pay performance fees to collection agencies. If internet stations were to adopt a commercial format (rather than a completely freebie amateur service) they might just achieve a more professional standard.

Otherwise I can see internet radio for the indie world remaining restricted to a much smaller audience, in whch case the prospects of indie internet radio is not bright at all.

Ideally, I think radio stations would be better served, and would serve the artists and listeners better, if they mixed mainstream and indie music In essence, the lower the stations set the bar, the smaller the audience they will have.

My two cents

Cheers

John

[john]

One more thing to add. In signing waivers with stations artists are essentially letting internet radio sites make money while the artists themselves make none.

I have consideted several times the prospect of adding an internet radio station to Songstuff playing only Songstuff artists and all of the above reasons have made me shy away from it.

1. Quality streams mean heavier data traffic meaning more cost of running the site

2. A lack of quality artist recordings to fill sufficient programming time

3. I am not a DJ

4. I am not a radio programmer

and lastly at present I could not afford to pay performance fees. I could use the waiver model but then that goes against the grain as an artist. While number 2 above improves as we add active members there are stills many quality issues with most posted recordings.

If I ever did launch such a service I would be looking to only broadcast quality songs that have been officially released, and the songs have ISRC codes.

[johnjm22]

I think the proliferation of media on the internet has already changed the industry. People don't listen to mainstream FM radio anymore; they're tired of hearing the same 10 songs played over and over again.

Pandora is huge already.

[Coises]

if & when that time arrives, internet radio will essentially be the next generation of mainstream radio. Won't many of the same issues & pitfalls then apply to that "new version"?.....i.e. - FCC regs, advertising revenue, big budgets, specialized programing for specific demographics, huge access problems for independent artists, etc.

There is at least one substantive difference. Traditional broadcast media were placed under FCC regulation because the broadcast spectrum is limited — only so many FM stations, for example, can exist in a given market without mutual interference. That was the justification for imposing government oversight despite what would appear to be First Amendment issues. While there are laws regarding obscenity, defamation, and so on that apply, for example, to print media, these are not at all on the same level as the rules applied to broadcast media.

Copyright and advertising, of course, will still provide leverage for de facto regulation by private interests... which, in my opinion, is frequently much worse in practice than government censorship. But at least the rationale for FCC involvement won’t be there, unless they invent a new one (not at all unlikely these days).

[Coises]

Now this sounds interesting:

If you haven't used it, it's a service that finally makes music social in a way that works. Basically, you and others go into a "room" which generally has a theme. Up to five people in the room can act as "DJs" and sit at a table in the front. Each of the DJs puts together a queue of songs and when their turn comes around, the next song in their queue plays (usually, it's still a little buggy on that front). Everyone else in the room can hear the song and can vote on whether it's "awesome" or "lame."

though I can’t do anything with it... apparently right now it’s only open to folks who have a Facebook friend already on it.

The thing about “online radio” is it’s mostly just radio moved to a new delivery path; the real next big things are usually things you just couldn’t have done with the same old thing.

[Roflcopter]

@Coises

Well, sometimes things have been tried earlier in a more primitive form, but their time just hadn't come yet (I believe there have been a few iPad predecessors in the past, that all came to zip, since they were too bulky, or expensive, or simply too weird).

And sometimes it's a matter of doing the same old same (think AOL and Facebook) but on a far grander scale, or more immediately interactive.

Talking about which - I think they haven't really thought the 'interactive' part thru yet - they mostly have silly ideas about advertising going interactive on your case - yeah people will line up for *that*, sure thang.

But you could do the same old same of all the stuff that *used* to work well in old-fashioned radio, and give those a new twist (interactive playlist voting, skype-ins etc).

Nothing really 'new' but old-fashioned radio would get a nice boost up the behind from doing the old things in a new way that you just *could not* have done it back in the old days.

[difrancmusic]

I think that this is the generation when artists are given far more opportunity than before. With technology that is skyrocketing, the future is indeed bright both for the aspiring and the pros.