I have been wavering for so long between terrestrial vs. Internet radio. If you’ve read my last few posts on where I intend to place the GRIN, an Internet streaming audio “radio” station started back last march. I am in favor of the old fashioned business models. However, the monetary investment involved in starting a conventional radio station from scratch is huge. An LPFM, discussed in my previous post, would require at least $5,000 to do it right. This is an educated guess for sure. The Internet option becomes much more attractive at this point in the game.
Last year I put a free station on the web; wow, that’s saving at least five grand as I see it. The trouble I had with delivering a viable product proved to be a false economy. My home computers were tied up 24/7 with unacceptable amounts of downtime due to a faulty modem. There are services as cheap as twenty bucks per month that will host a station and take care of the fees involved with keeping the music flowing legally. Their servers also host the Mp3’s uploaded from my location along with the ability of doing live shows from my studio. In their parlance, both archived and live streaming is offered without overusing my resources. The downside: the streaming is limited to a certain amount of simultaneous listeners at a fixed audio quality with options that vary from less than AM radio to Mp3 (subjectively better than stereo FM.) The higher the quality and/or listeners varies the cost. The fees are a la carte; question is, do you want more listeners listening at a crappy 32kbps or a handful at the pristine 128kbps? One could have both, but the cost is extreme for a self-supporting broadcaster. Prioritizing which is more important is a slippery slope. I favor the best audio available. The bean counters of this world would recommend the larger audience potential at the expense of sound quality. This is my baby so I won’t compromise on the product.
Stay tuned
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