Radio Nosferatu - A query
Mar. 15th, 2004 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
docwebsterAs most of you know, I (and the rest of our merry band) have been running Radio Nosferatu for about two years now. In all that time, I think our highest number of listeners has been six. That's a whole lot of money and a whole lot of time put in and for next to no listener feedback.
Most times, the only listener is our own Smoky, and that because it's his machine out there on the left coast that's our dedicated machine.
I'm forced to ask myself, is it because of our format? It's 90 percent gothic/industrial, with a few other bits and bobs thrown in. The reason I ask myself about that is, there's ten million other stations out there doing exactly what we're doing (and doing it as well or better than us in most cases), and most of those have very loyal dedicated listener bases that just aren't going to switch.
My question is this - and bear in mind this is only a question - do you think we'd reach a broader audience if we played a broader range of styles? For a long time now, my friends and I have been doing "Radio Free Callahan's" on the weekends as a venue for playing our favorite tunes and have been having a lot of fun with it. As I sincerely doubt Spider would let us make money with the Callahan's name (and rightly so), I thought why not make it "Radio Harmony". It would be thus be named after the planet a certain member of that splendid fiction and their family come from and would thus pay tribute to the series without unduly impinging on Mr. Robinson's copyrights. It would also more closely reflect a quality I think is desperately needed in this benighted day and age.
This would open the station up to a far broader range of styles and listener bases (and thus advertising revenues, let's not kid ourselves) and fulfill a dream I've had for quite a long time now of having a sort of public access station for pretty much whoever wants to submit a program that doesn't irritate the hell out of me.
I'm in the process of getting the station all nice and legal via a licensing co-op, so just about anything could be played without getting our asses sued off.
I ABSOLUTELY NEED TO STRESS that I have not gone out and unilaterally changed the station. I wanted to throw this out for discussion, but I feel down deep in my heart that this would work better. But I absolutely want to hear what you good people think.
Most times, the only listener is our own Smoky, and that because it's his machine out there on the left coast that's our dedicated machine.
I'm forced to ask myself, is it because of our format? It's 90 percent gothic/industrial, with a few other bits and bobs thrown in. The reason I ask myself about that is, there's ten million other stations out there doing exactly what we're doing (and doing it as well or better than us in most cases), and most of those have very loyal dedicated listener bases that just aren't going to switch.
My question is this - and bear in mind this is only a question - do you think we'd reach a broader audience if we played a broader range of styles? For a long time now, my friends and I have been doing "Radio Free Callahan's" on the weekends as a venue for playing our favorite tunes and have been having a lot of fun with it. As I sincerely doubt Spider would let us make money with the Callahan's name (and rightly so), I thought why not make it "Radio Harmony". It would be thus be named after the planet a certain member of that splendid fiction and their family come from and would thus pay tribute to the series without unduly impinging on Mr. Robinson's copyrights. It would also more closely reflect a quality I think is desperately needed in this benighted day and age.
This would open the station up to a far broader range of styles and listener bases (and thus advertising revenues, let's not kid ourselves) and fulfill a dream I've had for quite a long time now of having a sort of public access station for pretty much whoever wants to submit a program that doesn't irritate the hell out of me.
I'm in the process of getting the station all nice and legal via a licensing co-op, so just about anything could be played without getting our asses sued off.
I ABSOLUTELY NEED TO STRESS that I have not gone out and unilaterally changed the station. I wanted to throw this out for discussion, but I feel down deep in my heart that this would work better. But I absolutely want to hear what you good people think.
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 02:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 04:54 pm (UTC)If he wants me, he knows where to find me./ I take no offense at the lack of it, either. He's damned close to family either way. He can also ASK for songs he wants and get them.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 03:16 pm (UTC)one of the biggest lessons I learned is that: people are forgettful.
you gotta keep in their faces. mailing lists, banneer exhanges, etc...
I wish we could all set up a dedicated clustering situation so we'd all be broadcasting for one anoher all the time. Jeff would kill me thou. as is, IPM occupies 90% of the monthly bandwidth and just just from weekly broadcasts.
We'll see what happens. will be implementing bit torrent for all non-stream downloads soon.
anyhow, dont stretch your formats too thinly, as you will alienate listeners you already have. just gotta keep reminding them you exist.
-Mac
no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 03:19 pm (UTC)The Pernicious the Musquodoboit Harbour Farm Cat and his faithful amanuensis and general factotum Hour... not quite the noble terseness of General Electric Theatre, but it does have a certain ring to it... What say you?
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Date: 2004-03-15 03:19 pm (UTC)Yup. That'd be pretty much the reason for me. That, and I don't listen to music that often. Freaky, isn't it?
Have you considered asking Spider if you could do "Radio Free Callahans?" At the very least, it'd be free advertizing for him. Getting one's name associated with something you don't have creative control over can be an agravation for writers, but that's what disclaimers* are for.
*("Spider Robinson is not legaly, moraly, or genetically associated with RFC, nor do we intend to present our views as his, or vice verse. Now back to our show")
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Date: 2004-03-15 03:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 03:45 pm (UTC)On the other hand, I'm only rarely one of your six, so I probably don't count for all that much. :)
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Date: 2004-03-15 04:02 pm (UTC)If folks put it in their reminder posts it'd be a lot easier for the lazy ass folks like me.
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Date: 2004-03-15 04:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 04:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 04:57 pm (UTC)I need to add that to the "I like everything but..." list that is usually only "I like everything but rap."
A more varied format would get me back. Show tunes, 50s, 60s, 70s standards, pop, country, classical, ragtime, etc.
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Date: 2004-03-15 04:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 05:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 05:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 05:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-15 10:38 pm (UTC)But a question for you, there's umpteen million stations broadcasting "any old stuff"... What's your unique selling point ?
What would make a listener tune into your's, rather than someone else's station ?
Answer that, and you might have something that'll stand a chance.
Niche broadcasting works, provided you can find a select target audiance that'll get their content from you, and a few to no-one else.
It's the same really with any marketing. You can either try and compete with the mainstream boys, and get a small slice of a very big pie. Or go for the unique and fringe cultures, and try to get a very big slice of a small pie.
RFC might work as a PBS, so that people could dabble their toes at being internet radio jocks without the hassle of actually becoming one. [deaing with technical stuff etc.] Hell, I'd give it a go myself!
Let's talk
Date: 2004-03-16 02:02 am (UTC)I listened weekend before last, I was pointing out your station to him. Now that I see it's a sturdy connection and it's music I like I will be listening again. But honestly I forgot.
"Out of Site - Out of Mind" (not mispelled).
Advertising to get advertisers. I think this is the key. I got a decent goth collective here in Dallas and I can do some promotion. I think you should keep it Goth / Industrial. You've lost my fiance to a Russian Radio Webstation, but he likes dance/trance/world techno - basically he's in another basket. But he likes your Industrial collection.
Hmm. Tough to think but I'll just spit out this idea lest it disappear and I won't bother dressing it up.
Can I pay you air time to hold a show? I've written Adam a few radio sketch comedies. I'd hate for them to go to waste since the FreakShow doesn't seem to travel in the vein of spoofs.
If I did want to hold say an hour show on your station, how would I do it?
The beauty is if I have a show, I'll plug your station. This applies to all who wish to get a show. You approve which shows. I'm more than just a demonstration model for this idea. I'm interested in airtime on an established (ie all the software bits run fine from the website) WebStation.
So um right - need coffee.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-16 06:21 am (UTC)If I did have a good connection I still might not be there much due to conflicting schedules. It's the story of my life - too many things I want to do and not enough time...
dialup troubleshooting
Date: 2004-03-16 08:19 am (UTC)If the modem isn't managing that, something is wrong. Rewiring the house to give priority to the computer's phone jack could improve performance. Replacing the cable from the phone jack to the telephone box outside could help.
To check the wiring, find a way to plug your modem into the *test jack* in the box outside. If it works better there than inside, the inside wiring is degrading the signal.
If it works badly outside too then either the line or the modem is defective. If you can hear noise (crackle or hum) when placing a voice call from the test jack (outside) then the phone company should be willing to send a repair tech.
Another possibility is that other software is generating enough traffic to interrupt the stream. NetZero and other advertising banners pull bytes down the line. The Real systray icon will, by default, poll for "news" updates. Any web page that refreshes itself periodically can interrupt the music. Something like ZoneAlarm will tell you which pieces of software are making network requests.
RadioNosferatu, in far too many words
Date: 2004-03-16 07:53 am (UTC)Reasons include:
audio quality
computer capability
content
I'm an audio snob. I like recorded sound to have definition, range, consistancy and fullness. You've heard the quality of my 80s mix, some of which was made from vinyl recordings whose original shrinkwrap was broken for that mix. A 24kbps stream just doesn't have enough information to sound good. It's muddy, especially when trying to render a spectrally complex selection. It's OK as a social thing, with the interjections on the microphone and in IRC, but not for regular play.
My computer is on the far back end of the technology curve. In 1999 my primary PC was a 486sx33 running Windows 3.11. Useless for audio. Now I've "stepped up" to a P-120 running Windows 98SE. It's barely enough to render a 192kbps stream when otherwise idle. The drivers don't like the sound hardware and it clicks like someone's left a ruler in a fan cage. When it does play, the rhythm gets broken up by any sort of activity on the system. Scroll a window, the music pauses. Housemate sends a print job, the music pauses. Load a web page and it takes 2-3 times as long to show up (when compared to the same system not trying to play an audio stream), all the time interrupting the flow. Not seconds but multiple tens of seconds... minutes, if the popup blocker fires.
Moving on to content, some of the tracks work for me but most aren't what I seem in the mood for when I push the button. The parodies, covers and a few of the in-genre tracks tickle my fancy. Some of the others make me scroll through the windows for Winamp and pound the "v" key (stop) immediately. Keyboard shortcuts work even before the app's buttons are redrawn.
Given about 40kbps per channel and a computer that could play it without losing the last of its utility as a text based communication device... and given a much less portable audio system I'd probably give it more of a shot.
Crank up the bitrate. Simulcast for dialup but have better.
Take out web page links that go to placeholders.
Streamline the request process by avoiding new windows.
Provide some easy track-by-track feedback method.
Right now, you're running a track that sounds like it samples from the Pleasure Moods by Aimee group released on Napster so long ago. It caught my ear. This is a good thing. Hrm. Now it's degenerated into the more typical deathmetal, rendered with waveform clipping I can't turn down on this end.
Keep in mind that, until the technical issues are out of the way, I DON'T REPRESENT THE TARGET AUDIENCE OF A NET RADIO STATION.
Going back to your listener figure...
The special shows are heavily promoted but usually at a different stream address. Merging RFC and RN could work in your favor. If, at the end of a guest segment, the content went back to *something* instead of freezing, you'd instantly have a few listeners.
I see promotions on IRC and LiveJournal. There are more, I assume. Do you include it in, for instance, the signature file of messages you send in conversations on mailing lists? On every web page you maintain? On 4x6 glossy cards distributed at goth clubs? On your personal card? In the box with anything you sell online?
Is the Shoutcast version still running? Does it still play from a different playlist, essentially competing with the one you program? I ask only because Shoutcast seems to have forgotten me and just plays the error message over and over again. I don't care enough to futz with their authentication cookie again. Its only advantage is its high visibility.
Radio. Odd business. Picture an alternate history scenario where the recording industry had recognized airplay as an asset instead of a liability.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-16 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-17 10:10 am (UTC)