I'm just curious.
Of those who have currently operating stations
How many hours per day is the station on the air?
How much time -- percentage or hours per day, etc is "live" programming, e.g. you or someone else is actually in the studio broadcasting live?
Are their other persons regularly on the air live? Is your studio in your home and you actually have non-family members come in and broadcast?
Do you have a separate building/office/location away from your home or business where your station/studio is located?
Do you stream as well as broadcast on the air?
Do you run any paid advertising?
Do you utilize pre-produced programming (e.g. recorded shows from other producers)
Just curious. I guess I should answer my own questions, eh? 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Nothing "live". I used to do a live noon hour show when I fires started but I'm too busy now. I do produce the Oompah Hour that runs on Saturday evenings and I do it "live recorded" e.g. I roll the recorder in the studio and do the entire show as if I'm live, then archive it for playing Saturday evenings. It's also "mini-syndicated" to 3 other Part 15's, a couple web casters and 5 commercial broadcast stations (you can have it too -- it's free for the broadcasting). I change my liners and community announcments, etc often enough that it stays fresh, and I'm generally runing about 40 different commercials at any given time, about half freebies for local shops and PSA's and half paid for (at 30 cents a spot). No one else broadcasts, although I do occasionally have someone come in to record a commercial. My station is in what used to be my Son's music studio (r.e. spare bedroom) that I turned into a voice over studio when he moved out -- I added the programming computer and was set to go. I do not stream. I focus on serving the small communities where my signal is clearly heard and my audio is also on the local cable TV system. Yes, I run paid for ads. Ads are free to anyone who can hear me on the air, and I sell spots at 30 cents each to those outside the area and quite a few to internet based businesses. Anywhere from $600 to $1100 a month since December in sold spots. The only "canned shows" I use are my own polka show, the CDTex Radio Show (Texas country) and Gospel memories on Sunday mornings. Additionally, I run FSN news most hours for five minutes. My regular monthly expenses are basically $15 a month for FSN and $5 monthly for the station cell phone, so the station has it's own phone number. Also about $200 yearly for music rights (don't remember exactly but that's close). That and the little bit of electricity the operation uses.
Just curious to know what others are doing.
Tim in Bovey
This survey should prove to be very informative as I'm sure there will be many creative variations as to how stations are run. I think you have a very excellent situation with the town(s) being so small that you can actually reach it (them).
Being plunk in the center of a massive sprawl composed of over 100 municipalities, my neighborhood is not a target audience. I talk to people and they are cable TV, internet and sports types, NOT radio listeners.
I am the target audience.
KDX Worldround Radio is my solution to very dull local radio... it always has been since the networks stopped being creative in the 1950s. I consider this place in the midwaste to be the capital of mediocrity (I hope that's spelled right).
My programs are mostly talk produced by others and used with their permission. I like to hear conversation whether it's idle chatter or discussion of serious topics, and that's what it is.
I pre-record a 10-minute daily talk show called Blare OnAir Lite which is available for use from my website, and a 1-hour weekly show either Blare OnAir or The Low Power Hour, also available for use by stations.
My listed programs are free to me on a non-commercial basis, so I cannot sell air time around those programs. Some of the programs survive by including their own commercials, and I leave them in if that is a requirement of the agreement, but if not obligated, I sometimes cut out commercials to gain time.
Since the courts have strangely ruled that religious organizations can hold licenses and use their programs to promote themselves without offering time for any other points of view, and the courts do not consider religions to be commercial, I will provide airtime to religions for $250 an hour and it will be considered non-commercial. But religions cannot dictate what I might say on my own time. I have not promoted this idea and presently have no religions on board.
I live at the radio station and do not provide studio space to anyone but myself.
Streaming is part of the operation, and I did a few "live" talk shows just to test the technicalities of going live, but since then have scheduled only pre-recorded material.
Because I find so many good programs to air, I don't mess with any type of local programming.
Tim, if the information is available to post, I would like to hear more detail about your royalty payment... Where do you send the payment, what kind of record keeping or reporting are you required to do and what verification do they give that you are indeed covered?
My station runs 24/7 automation.
Content includes:
Several pre-produced talk shows; Radio Dan, Big Picture Science, Planetary Radio, Kevin Smith Show, The Low Power Hour
Talk Fillers; The Deck Chef. One Minute Zine Review
A few pre-produced music format shows; Gaules Moldie Oldies, Gospel Memories Show, PCJ Happy Station, PCJ Jazz for the Asking
Random Indie Music. Some was recorded at our in home studio, most other from Internet sites.
Feature Story News which when I signed on years ago there was no charge
NOAA Weather forecasts from current download files
I have a Magic Jack phone line for the station which costs $30/year.
Nothing live. I keep thinking about it but will probably have to wait till I'm retired. I do my own spots and promos.
I simulcast my programming on a Web stream.
Runs 24/7 all prerecorded including station ID's and station descriptions, like, "remembering the hit parade, 50s 60s 70s hits on 90.7 oldieswmrk", or "nothing electronic here...real songs played by real bands with real instruments with a tune you can sing along to" etc and many more all picked at random in the mix of music, all pre-recorded in MP3 files. No commercials...that's all part of being attractive to listeners. This is a hobby only and making no money at it. It runs itself whether I am there or not. Only time it goes off is if I make changes or add stuff. If I were to try to go live I would have trouble thinking of what to say! I'm no Wolfman Jack! and I would have to sit with it...much better to have it all automated. If I do any "specials" like a whole hour of beach boys I would pre-record it all. All is original programing by me...no re-broadcasts of something else. Under CRTC(Canada)rules for unlicenced broadcasting that's not allowed.
All done from home, "studio" consists of transmitter, compressor and source, an MP3 player with gapless playback so one song goes right into the next and talking bits go right into next song(no dead air) just like commercial stations.
Oh ya, by rigging the MP3 player to work on regular AA batteries, there is no down time having to recharge all the time..can't have that! Plays continuosly for 3 days and a "recharge" is the 30 seconds to change 3 AA batteries.
I just sit back and listen to my own station!
No internet streaming, just on the air.
Serves the immediate neighbourhood around where I live.
Mark
I'm still in concept evaluation at this point.
Testing using an old laptop runnung mobile DJ software in 'shuffle dinner music mode. Transmitters are SSTRAN amt3000 and Ramsey fm100b.
There are no planss for syndicated talk. I'm thinking about rebroadcasting streamed music, but I'm not sure what format I'm going to do, so no immediate plans.
I'm hoping to find others who want to swap voice work for station IDs and bumpers / drops. That will be the extent of "air staff". Even my live programming will be pre-recorded features.
I might setup a stream server since I have commercial IP at the house for work.
Praze BoB!
Continuing, the hours of operation of KDX Worldround Radio are mostly based on how long I can stand listening to the radio, which tends to be about 10-hours per day from 10 AM to 8 PM CDT, but on weekends there are a few more hours, especially Sunday when I stay on all night as a relay for 12-hours of programs from TUC Radio in the hills of Northern California operating with solar power. As it so happens I love silence, which makes sign off a favorite program in itself and the transmitter doesn't need to be on!
Our stream management has gone through interesting changes, for awhile we had 24kbps and 16kbps streams on Shoutcast, the reason for the very low bit-rate was based on data that said over 50% of internet subscribers still had dial-up modems and could not listen to high bandwidth radio. But after a few years the 16kbps service failed to grow an audience and is now shut down.
Then we added an Icecast Server in addition to Shoutcast, running two streams first at 48kbps then 56kbps, for the reason that this would get us on more directories. But directories tend to list tens-of-thousands of stations and thus do not attract listeners.
For a little while we ran an AAC+ stream, based on an engineer on This Week in Radio Tech who said AAC+ is the stream format of the future achieving higher quality with less bandwidth than mp3, which remains the most common standard.
On July 1 this year we closed the Shoutcast stream and are solely heard on the Icecast Server. Once in awhile one person listens for minutes or an hour. Maybe it's the NSA or a copyright troll and not a real listener. No way to know.
The best time to enjoy life is while it's happening.
24/7, all pre-recorded (no live programming) and/or automated. We do do some hosted shows, which includes Teenage Dreams (50s/60s music oriented towards teenagers), Surfin' The New Wave (late 70s to mid 80s new wave music) and Slightly Bent (off-the-wall music and comedy). I host those shows, but in the past I've had others host a wide variety of shows, including classical music, modern jazz, Billboard Bubblers (music that made the charts, but never cracked the Hot 100), Cliff Richard and more (in fact, I'd have to say that the particular host of the Cliff Richard show, with judicious marketing, managed to get the most simultaneous listeners - over 120 - for a special Cliff Richard weekend).
No rebroadcasting, as mentioned earlier, not allowed in Canada.
The automated portions include 50s/60s obscure pop music, vintage jazz and the 1980s (every single that charted during that decade, although I'm thinking of switching over to purely new wave music). One of the more innovative things that we've done for the automated playlists is to, on the fly, generate synthesized speech to identify the artist and song name.
We simultaneously stream over the Internet at 40kbps mono.
We are licensed by SOCAN to play virtually any copyrighted music except independents.
We host our own streaming, which is limited by the bandwidth of the Internet connection (which is why the stream rate is relatively low - it's a compromise between sonic quality and maximizing the number of listeners that can be supported).
And, of course, we use a BETS-compliant Decade MS-100 FM mono transmitter for the over-the-air broadcasts.
The programming of a radio station is not a static thing.
In this sense the word "static" means "stationary and unchanging."
Programming is in fact an organic thing; a fluid thing; an evolving thing; a mutating thing; a growing thing; an ever changing thing.
Formats attempt to be "always the same," but you may have noticied that stations change formats all the time, because they get different ideas and decide to take action.
For example, I have a talk station, and the talk programming all by itself takes different branches... there are opinions, discussions, news, news analysis, stuff I don't agree with sometimes, but that's just talk.
I also have classical music programming under a license agreement and I am right now going through a battle in my own mind over whether I should sign off the music and go all talk.
For awhile back in 2009 I solved the dual missions by running two radio stations on two different freguencies with two different streams, but this really ripped me apart because, as I said earlier, this is my personal station. There's no way I can listen to two stations at the same time.
A programmer is like a mid-wife between conception and birth.
For my programming: http://radio199.150m.com/Programmering.htm It is ment as a weekend station but when its legal in the Netherlands (working on it) I go for 24/7.
7 1/2 hours of live presentation. Other hours automation.
At the moment I'm the only one who does presentation, no guests or something like that.
I have no steam, only transmissting in the medium wave.
I run no paid advertising. But I'm using historic commercials.
Sometimes on special occasions I use old recordings from Off-shore radio (Radio Veronica, Radio Noordzee, etc.).
I have an "Oldies/Soul" format, with a chart (Top 25 & Tipparade from 40 years ago). On sa & su every hour a weatherbreak (self produced).
In the program "avond-uur" I play 60's, 70's en Soul, not only the hits but also a lot of unknown work. Presentation is "no nonsense".
I have no telephone in the studio. But I monitoring the mail regular (in live programs continu).
Rob V.
BMI has a form on their website for Part 15. I simply filled it out, sent in the form with payment, and I'm covered with them for a year. Seems to me last year it was just under $200. I see now it's up a bit above that. Has to be renewed yearly. SESAC sent me a waiver telling me no license was necessary for my operation, and after a year I'm STILL trying to get ASCAP to even reply to me, but I have documented all my emails and actual written mailed letters to them trying to get a license, so if anyone complains I can show I tried in good faith to get licensed. Should that ever change I'll update this. BMI sent me back a signed copy of the license agreement. The SESAC waiver speaks for itself. This is for over the air broadcast ONLY and does NOT cover streaming in any way. There is no reporting, no additional paperwork, no additional BS. It's basically the same agreement used with commercial radio just the fee is much less, but if I start making too much money I have to pay more, and wouldn't qualify for this particular license with BMI or the waiver from SESAC. At the commercial stations I work for we pay tens of thousands yearly to the three PRO's (performing rights organizations) for our commercial AM and FM stations. And again, no reporting necessary. The fee is based on potential audience and revenue.
Tim in Bovey
Thanks to those who took time to type out all this information. I just think it's interesting to see what others are doing.
Tim in Bovey
In terms of Part 15 wireless AM FM radio not all licensing agencies were mentioned... I guess I'm talking to Tim...
What about RIAA and Record Exchange? Do they get a piece of the pie (even when there is no pie)?
I'm going to suggest that the ALPB start issuing licenses for operating Part 15 stations... a royalty payment license. We'll ride everywhere in limosines and party on a yacht.
Join the ALPB.
As of this time traditional broadcast radio only pays BMI, ASCAP and SESAC. All the others apply only to "new" media such as streaming, podcasts, satellite (pay) radio, etc. It's been this way for 100 years, although strong efforts are underway to change that is hasn't happened yet. Part 15 is terrestrial broadcast radio. If you're just simply broadcasting in the air, that's all you need and anyone telling you anything else either enjoys scare tactics, is a musician trying to scam you, or simply is carrying on urban legends.
Tim in Bovey
There's a pretty good article that covers music licensing here:
http://www.splc.org/knowyourrights/legalresearch.asp?id=112
Tim in Bovey