How to Start an online Radio Station?

[jitterbug978]

I want to take my music/Guitar based website to the next level and host my own radio station. I am using Wordpress.

It would probably be pre-recorded mp3's.. that would then play one after another.

Ideally I would have 2 groups of mp3's. One set is the music which would play randomly, the other set is a small set of advertisements which would also play randomly but only after every 5 songs.


Can I do this with a Podcast? Is there a plugin to allow something similar?

[Benjamin Ehinger]

I am pretty sure there is a way to do this with podcast. I would post something in the wordpress support forum to see if anybody knows of a plugin you can use.

[jitterbug978]

Anyone have any ideas, I could really use some help.

[Matt Maiden]

There are places that host a full on radio show for you and let you upload pre-recorded material and have it set up for iTunes like BlogTalkRadio.

There are a few more places but that is the only one I can think of right now.

It's free for you to host your own show and get paid from revenue sharing.

Matt

[jitterbug978]

well that sounds interesting.. I'm concerned about paying royalties and such as I really dont want to get hit by some copyright fine.

[Matt Maiden]

Are you talking about playing commercial music like a "pirate" blog radio station?

I thought you were talking about playing your own music and having ads related to cds and guitar accessories.

Matt

[jitterbug978]

Nope, I would definitely be playing music from well known Artists... mostly classic rock.

[MichaelHiles]

You'll get hit with royalties. BMI and ASCAP will come calling.

Although it's waned in popularity, Shoutcast is a great free streaming platform for winamp.

[Mark Riddle]

Jitterbug,

if you aren't paying ascap bmi seesac royalties, it will make it nearly impossible for you to find someone to distribute your podast / stream.

The distributor would be at risk for YOUR royalties, they simply require you to PROVE you are playing licensed music.

Mark Riddle

New Age Christmas Radio

KC Cafe Radio

[Brian Tayler]

There are services like Live365 that will host your station and also pay royalties on your behalf Live365 Internet Radio - Thousands of Free Online Radio Stations.

Or if you prefer to run a station on your own using your own server (like Shoutcast Free Internet Radio - SHOUTcast Radio - Thousands of Free Online Radio Stations or Icecast Icecast.org)

However then you will have to provide your own content streamer (to the server) and also handle royalty payments yourself.

I can get pretty detailed if you need, as this is a pretty complex and deep topic in an of itself.

Also there are two services you can join where they will submit royalty payments on behalf of the group of broadcasters online.

[fitz10]

You could also just play royalty free music which obviously won't be as popular but solves your royalty paying problems. I used tons of that stuff in college film classes and some of it is actually quite good, although not popular in general. Just Google royalty free music.

[jitterbug978]

Originally Posted by Brian Tayler

Also there are two services you can join where they will submit royalty payments on behalf of the group of broadcasters online.

What are these services?

[mahesh2k]

Here is what you need to start your own Radio stations:

- Shoutcast Broadcasting (DSP) Plugin
- FREE !!! Shoutcast ,free shoutcast hosting , shoutcast hosting service

I played many sets using these two tools. You can create playlist in winamp and let the player do the rest. You can also match BPM using the plugin.

This was about the freeway. But you have plenty of paid services that let you broadcast your own music. Some sites i discovered from trance.nu.

[Sumit Menon]

Not helping the conversation but please read this:

Recording Industry: Radio Is Piracy, But Not Playing Our Music Is A Federal Offense | Techdirt

lol.. like Bill Gates said:
"As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

[Brian Tayler]

Originally Posted by jitterbug978

What are these services?

Sorry didn't have the sites names on hand when I wrote my original post.

The most popular royalty fees group right now is LoudCity LoudCity.net - Home

I've also personally used SWCast Next Generation Online Music Radio on SWCast Network®

Any other questions feel free to ask away! I've spent many years involved in both terrestrial and online radio.

[Mark Riddle]

I'll 2nd Brian's suggestion of license agencies.

LoudCity.net is the most popular service, with both (and shoutcast) you will be able to pick up some listeners from being listed in their directory.

Although we handle our own licensing for KcCafeRadio.com Its really time consuming and quite a hassle The Indie artists love it, and that's the main reason we do it.

You can set your station up as simply as creating a playlist of songs using winamp and stream through shoutcast / icecast and loop the playlist. Its good enough for a test station.

When your stream proves to get an audience then its well worth it to get some sort of automation software, such as Sam Broadcaster or Station Playlist.

Both of those have very active forums where you can work out bugs and help you with custom tweeks that make your station stand out from the crowd.

I've worked in and around radio since 1971, built a terrestrial station in 1980 and have been doing net stations since 2002.

Mark Riddle

[tchiky]

Have you ever searched for a website that to listen music and watch videos in shuffle mode? At tv243.com you can do that, just by typing your keywords like favourite artists, or tv shows and then you will get new different search results each time you make a search, because the search engine randomizes the results. A sorted video starts automaticly playing and a list of related videos is displayed. When the videos ends, a new video is automaticly sorted based on your keywords. Finally, you get all this feaures for free at tv243.com Enjoy!

[RefundHost]

The very first thing you need to do is talk to

if in USA ascap www.ascap.com

if in CANADA socan www.socan.ca

if in UK gesac www.gesac.org

...and find out your legal requirements for using songs, if not your original material.

Or precalculate your prison sentence by this formula:

6 months per broadcast per unlicensed song.

[sdentrepreneur]

Very cool idea, I have been part of an online radio show for over 5 years now. Here is link if you want to see what we have been doing, we are revamping the site but it will give you an idea. San Diego Online Radio