When he came knocking at the local FM Pirate Radio guys door, the Field Agent was by no means adversarial. In fact by all accounts he was quite compassionate in an aggressive way.
He was bound to confront the station operator and stress the seriousness and consequence of his actions. And yet, was willing to leave with the satisfaction that the operator was honest and remorseful (read scarred silly.) And then to offer "just keep it low key", he must have felt the passion for radio in the operator.
Gads, wouldn't it be great if all the stories ended that way.
Should this stuf be a new thread?
Thanks for your-alls enthusiam!
Something Bob said rekindled a memory.. Very curious how the FM station picked up on your theme...
To start with, let me clarify, the "Tie-Y-Bee" theme was not something I created, I don't know who did, but the logo started going viral down hear about 15 years or so ago, and is commonly used still. All I did was to add a W in front of the letters TYB since it sounded like a radio stations call letters..
Anyway, on how the FM station got wind of it, I don't know, and it could just as likely have been just a coincidence that they applied for those call letters a couple months after I began using it.. (there's another story about what became of my registered wtyb.com domain name, but I won't go into that here)
Now onto the curious event that I wanted to tell you about..
A couple weeks after I began test broadcasting from the Tybee Island Pavilion, and had upload my WTYB website, I was at the Wilmington Island dump, with my then boss (who manages certain aspects of several county facilities) and we were tossing a trailer load of stuff in one of the bins, when a nice looking big white pickup pulled up and a guy leaned out the window and hollered my name. I glanced at my boss, and he said "go ahead" So I walked over to the truck. We talked about 6 or 7 minutes, and I kept glancing back over to Dean, and found it peculiar that he wasn't telling me to get back to work, cause he's usually a real hardass stickler about diverting from the task at hand...
After our discussion I walked back and proceeded to continue unloading the trailer with my boss. The following interaction tells the story..
"What did he want?"
"He heard about my station and wanted to talk about it"
"How did he know it was yours?"
"huhm, I don't know, I guess he heard it through the grapevine"
"What %#X^@!ing grapevine?"
"What are you getting mad about? Your the one who told me to go ahead and talk to him!"
"I'm not mad, I just want to know how you know him!" (he was mad).
"He used to be a customer of mine when I had the restaurant"
"What were those papers you were handing back and forth?"
"He was giving me his email address and I was giving him mine and the website address of the station"
"What did he tell you?"
"Damn Dean, what's the big deal? He just asked me some details and told me he thought it would be a good idea if I were to broadcast info on the city renovation plans, that it would be appreciated by the Tybee residents"
"Do you even know who he is?"
"He just this guy who used to come in the restaurant! Why?"
"&$#^!@! you're a &^$@!*&! dumbass! He's the head of the Chatham County Commission!"
For about two weeks after that Dean kept telling people; Can you believe it? The County Commissioner knows Rich!
To this day I don't know how he knew I was connected with it, who knows, maybe I'll hear from him again, I just went ahead and put my email address on the website.. I was delaying doing so until I actually went into operation.
I just think its a neat story that you-all might enjoy!
Sounds like a real Peyton Place story-line goin' on there. Big County Boss, local City Manager envy of underlings associations, Mega Media corp espionage...
A quick check of WIKIPEDIA turns up a synopsis of Cool 103.9-WTYB. Seems as though the owners were hard pressed to come up with a profitable format.
Owned by the Big Boys, they must have sensed a Golden Opportunity to turn the fledgling FM around and make some bucks! And you did all the Brain Storming!
I hope there was ample compensation for relinquishing the WTYB domain name.
Owned by the Big Boys, they must have sensed a Golden Opportunity to turn the fledgling FM around and make some bucks! And you did all the Brain Storming!
I hope there was ample compensation for relinquishing the WTYB domain name.
Well, lets back up.. They didn't steal any brainstorming from me! They didn't take anything from me at all, it just so happens they applied for the call letters WTYB after I had already been using it for a few months, and they got it.
But I want to emphasize that WTYB FM has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Tybee Island, -- and never has. Originally after their name change, they used to occasionally throw a one liner stinger out saying something like "Tybee Islands Radio Station" but I don't think they even do that anymore..
And never, at least not as far as I'm aware, has their station provided any form of Tybee information or news, or even local advertising! Nor where there many, if any local listeners.. I mean its a farce, to ever have called it a Tybee Island station is ridiculous.
What's more, apparently their station address is in Milwaukee, WI !
As for the wtyb domain.. I recall during the change when a representative came to a public city hall council meeting, which I attended.. Some stranger stepped up and gave about a 2 minute hello, and that was it.
After the meeting I approached him, explaining that I owned the domain name and would they be interested in making some form of transfer of it.. The guy just brushed me off, he could care less, he wasn't even freindly and I got the impression he never even wanted to be at the meeting.
So they had nothing with obtaining the domain.. I registered the domain locally thru a company I used to be closely affiliated with (and still am indirectly).. and well.. this gets into non-blood "family" drama..
So enough on that matter.
It is possible to make a business out of micro broadcasting. It is also possible (but much less likely) to make a profit.
I ran a legal, low power FM station on Bowen Island (just off the mainland from the city of Vancouver) for several years. Initially, it was an adjunct to the bookstore that I had just opened up, intended to (hopefully) bring in customers to the shopping area in which it was located.
The bookstore did OK. But the radio station took off on its own, and became very popular. We were able to hit the ferry lineup from where we were located (always very important on an island). I even had people tell me that they used to drive from across the island just to park where they could listen to the station!
We used a sponsorship model, which appeared to work quite well. You paid your money, and you got a "Sponsored by ..." message on the air. It never even remotely covered the expenses of running the radio station, but it certainly was a conversation piece while customers were browsing in the bookstore. And it probably as a result did bring in more customers.
Some things to consider about running a station such as this as a business, from experience. If you take money, you are making a committment to the payee - there is a lot more responsibility than if you are doing it as a hobby. Considerations such as number of listeners, up time (i.e., whether the sponsorship message actually got played) are now important.
Plus you are a lot more visible, particularly outside your listening area. We actually got an article written on the radio station in a large Vancouver daily newspaper, and were even mentioned on Canada's government run radio station - the CBC. You can't afford to take any short cuts with legality (and that includes copyright issues). Shortly after all this publicity, I saw an Industry Canada truck on the island monitoring and measuring what I presumed to be our signal - it must have been OK because I heard nothing.
I eventually decided to run the radio station as a hobby (far less worries), and only over the Internet. Most of our listeners are now from Europe/Asia/Australia, where Internet radio useage is much more pervasive and advanced than here in North America. It's always fascinating (at least to me) to look at the Icecast statistics on my server at 1 a.m. Pacific time, and see 5 or 6 listeners from the other side of the world.
Broadcasting must run in my blood, however, as I'm considering resurrecting the Decade FM transmitter, and perhaps even running it as business again with a different revenue model (probably traditional advertising slots). Or maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment 🙂
Some things to consider about running a station such as this as a business, from experience. If you take money, you are making a committment to the payee - there is a lot more responsibility than if you are doing it as a hobby. Considerations such as number of listeners, up time (i.e., whether the sponsorship message actually got played) are now important.
All true, you have to insure that the client gets what they pay for. And it's a good idea to specifically spell out what it is they are paying for before any transactions even takes place.. and to avoid giving the impression that it is more than it really is.. At least that's my opinion. Otherwise you're just deceiving them.
As far as I'm concerned, it's actually better to tone the pitch down just a tad, and avoid elaborating what the maximum potential results might or could be.
As an example, I used to build a LOT of websites, mostly local stuff, Motels, Bed & Breakfast's, Restaurants, Clubs, etc...
.....
But let me catch myself from drifting the point.
I had emphasized to everyone of them, that the website was simply just an "on-line" brochure, a fancied up version of their printed paper flyer, nothing more.. and regardless of what anyone had told them, being online is not going to do a lot for their business.. You see, during that time (mid 90's) the web was beginning to boom, and everyone seemed to have the impression being on the web would make their business a success. - I literally told them that was a bunch of bull, and NOT to anticipate a big response, and that the only thing going on here is that their information would be made available to anyone outside the area who might do a search on the net about Tybee.
Well I was proved wrong, most of them did receive a substantial response, and benefited from it! And this ended up benefiting me, because word of mouth resulted in my getting several high paying clients (mentioned above) from outside the area that I never even approached.
But I'm still drifting the subject, arn't I?
OK.. back to the radio station..
My viewpoint, and approach on this (in respect to the kind of station I'm creating) is to liken this radio station to a magazine.. In that it contains stories, reviews, humor, commentaries, official information, casual entertainment, and readers responses.. and advertisements.
My radio station is being formulated as an On-Air Magazine.
It's going to include music play of local musicians.. but it's not really a music station. And it's more than just a tourist information.
It's an ad based local magazine, in audio format.
It has several different ad packages, based on the amount of times it played, and the time of day played.
Adverting includes the creation of the ad, with a couple alternate versions of different lengths and content, as well as prominence on the site, along with a free separate webpage of their business hosted on the site.
All along I've also been contemplating a companion printed magazine published monthly.. but this island already has two magazines and two newspapers, and I really don't want to step on their toes, and the owners of those publications could prove beneficial to station..
I really prefer to print a magazine for the station and add it to the advertising packages, which would improve the value to the advertisers - (plus the fact that printed publications are my expertise) but it's not necessary, and in consideration to the existing island publishers - I think I'll not do that.
Artisan,
As you say, there's a lot more responsibility doing it as a business than it is when doing it as hobby.
And you're so right.
But I've not approached this as a hobby, the intention from the beginning has been as a business.
That's why I'm so concerned about once getting on the air, staying on the air..
If it were just a hobby, then I wouldn't be so worried about how to legally install and ground this thing on a roof.
If I get shut down, it shuts down the whole island.
and the entire business venture.
Above all else, this is why my station has been so slow to manifest.
What are the local newspapers like in your area, Rich?
I ask because I had an experience that might make your venture more stable. One of my college buddies wanted to start a magazine in 2002 but seeing the cost of getting those out gave him nightmares.
We did a little checking around and found out that the businesses in our neighborhood were very frustrated because they have no affordable advertising venues - the daily wanted $200 per day minimum and the local radio stations deals started at $1,000 per package.
My buddy started a little eight page semi monthly newspaper. Our little rag came out twice a month with eight pages of hyper-local coverage. Community news, high school sports, elementary school art, school lunch menus, land use hearing reports, crime reports, dog catcher reports, over-the-back-fence reports and movie reviews for a local area. The readers loved it and the local businesses advertised.
I ran ads on my low power station just for fun and the listeners liked that, too.
Even though the whole project could be done on line, folks still like to read a newspaper now and then. Businesses with customers who wait for service (restaurants, auto shops, salons, etc.) really like to have these kinds of publications on hand, too.
Charge for advertising in the newspaper and add your radio station as a bonus, that way if you have to change your station set up the "bonus" is impacted instead of the "main event." We found that advertisers felt like the advertising worked when they saw folks reading the papers and all were very happy with the results.
That newspaper earned a net profit of about $30k/year, excluding trades we did.