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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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.