What Do I Need to Start My Own Online Radio Broadcast?
If you have great taste in music and the desire to share your favorite tunes with the world, it's only a natural next step to think about creating an Internet radio station. Although the basic technology behind starting an online radio program isn't very complicated, getting an online radio station broadcasting is a little more difficult than ripping your CD collection and streaming the songs for the world to hear.
Other People Are Reading
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Software
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Although you can use a double-male stereo cable to link a CD or MP3 player directly into your computer's microphone jack, you'll probably want to develop a program using a more sophisticated method. Sound editor programs such as Replay Radio, Winamp and Edcast offer various media playing/editing features that will enable you to prerecord shows and stream them on a scheduled period. These programs will also make it easier to integrate station identification, DJ commentary and other clips much more easily than the direct-to-stream approach.
Website and Hosting
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Develop your server to meet your maximum audience size. You'll need to purchase enough bandwidth from a service provider to stream to your intended audience. Estimate your bandwidth needs by multiplying the number of listeners you intend to serve by the bitrate at which you intend to stream. You'll need to broadcast in 192 kilobits per second to approximate high-end MP3-quality audio. If you intend to simultaneously reach 1,000 listeners at this quality, you'll need to rent space on a dedicated radio server, which provides at least 1.92 megabits per second of bandwidth.
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Royalty Payments
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Until 2007, online radio broadcasts only had to pay royalties to songwriters and the owners of recordings based upon their overall profit margins. Because of this, many small online radio stations sprang up and largely skirted accounting practices by not making any money. By 2010, however, the Copyright Royalty Board demands that webcasters pay a royalty of $0.0019 per song per listener. By this arrangement, an Internet broadcaster who streams 10 songs to an audience of 1,000 listeners, owes rights owners $19 ($0.0019 * 10 * 1,000) for use of the song.
Business Plan
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Royalty payments can hobble a modestly popular Internet radio station's budget if its business plan was to operate as an out-of-pocket hobby or as a small operation. Unless you have an open-ended line of credit for your radio station, you'll need to account for costs through advertising revenue. To account for costs, figure your monthly overhead -- ISP bill, amortized value of software and staff payments -- and the number of songs you intend to stream each month and your estimated listenership to figure your total cost. Develop a per-song cost for streaming your songs by dividing your overall costs by the number of songs you will play per month. Use this total to set advertising rates to meet minimum expenses.
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References
- "PC World" ; Start Your Own Internet Radio Station for Free; Patrick Miller; March 2010
- CNET: How to Record an Internet Radio Broadcast; Colin Duwe; September 2004
- PBS: NewsHour Extra: New Internet Radio Royalty Fees Pressure Webcasters
- "Wired"; Listening Post Just another WordPress weblog Pandora Founder: SoundExchange Will Not Enforce New Royalty Rates on Sunday; Eliot Van Buskirk; July 2007
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