Why Radio Is Dying by an antique Radio nut

Same here.  I just watched it on regular Youtube.

Here's why I think internet radio is dying and it is getting harder got get listeners

To much competition a lot of station are just run for fun and nothing more you have teens playing music from the last 5 years they get crappy free hosting 64kbps to 96kbps and put 20 to 40 cds worth of tracks on rotate and do nothing else.  

A few of the internet radio directories are not listing station any more Shoutcast kinda hard to get listed not and they do not show artist title any more no point being listed they are not showing your info Radio Tuna has been in sleep mode for 2 1/2 years now and Tunein is not accepting stations any more they are getting sued for not paying royalties they dropped my station 5 weeks ago.  Shoutcast and Radiotuna gave me 65% to 70% of the listeners to my station.

10 to 15 years ago your average of internet radio station listeners were 25 to 40 now it is like 14 to 21 this age does not want to list to stuff for 70s to 90s they only want to hear crap that only gets 5 min of fame for the last few years.  Reason the listener age has dropped so much mobile devices make so easy to listen to internet radio. 

Stream licensing fees are getting way to high for newbies to start a station. 

No Way of Knowing

The only thing knowable to a streaming station is a "connection" which shows an IP address somewhere.

It is impossible to know if a human being on the other end of the connection is truly "listening" to the station.

It could just as easily be the copyright police checking to see if you're paying royalties for the music.

Maybe it's the government checking up on political messages so they can crack-down.

Or it's some poor devil making a technical analysis of streamers as he learns how to start one of his own.

I've had an IP address traceable to Indianapolis Indiana frequently connect to my station, but I do not know anyone in that area and can only wonder why they connect. Maybe they are trying to mine bit-coins on my computer.

I do scans of internet stations looking for other talk formats and find surprisingly few of them... almost everybody plays rock music.

I can't help but respond to some of the misconceptions I have been reading about internet radio from many folks who have been having trouble becoming successful in their project.

I don't mean to sound cynical but when I hear people say they can only get three listeners or anything less than five or six that really is pitiful especially if you've been doing it for a year or so. If that is the case we need to talk about formats and age groups as well as rather not you should stream 24/7 in order to get success.

First of all you are correct that there are thousands of Internet radio stations and it's very difficult to be on top when there are so many radio stations. Not to mention services like Pandora Spotify Tidal and then you even have apple music all of which are automatic jukeboxes based on popular genres and most of these jukeboxes play from the charts. This is where hobby radio can shine because you as a music programmer have the ability to break people free of the top 40 top 100 or even top 500.

Rather you play vinyl or you simply stream music that you buy online you will need at least 30000 + songs in your catalog. No if ands or buts if you want to become a successful station you need to be very serious about what you're doing and have a format that is different from the top 40 young country and the stuff that they call wannabe classic rock which is no more than classic hits. Focus on what you want to accomplish and the people you're trying to attract.

One example would be if you're playing old country such as Buck Owens Tammy Wynette Johnny Cash Charley Pride June Carter Loretta Lynn and so on. You would not turn around in mix that with something like Taylor Swift. Doing so would be sacrilegious to the folks that love the old country format. Keep in mind to that folks that listen to the older style of music especially old country or even Blues like Muddy Waters pay a fortune for good audiophile equipment so you're station had damn well better have good audio. Streaming in anything less than 128 k MP3 is unacceptable unless you plan on streaming in AAC Plus which then you can stream at 64k in stereo.

Bandwidth is very important as you won't be able to run a server at your house after posting your station on Manny radio directories such as TuneIn and radio.com. there is even a new one called live online radio dot-com which does very well too. With that being said you will need to rent a server and decide if you want Icecast or shoutcast.

There is a major difference between a value server and a dedicated server. Value server is as it sounds they share their data with other servers like gaming servers which will suck the bandwidth dry and cause your stream to constantly cut in and out during high peak times. With your server plan you should think about Auto DJ and be ready to pay a little bit. These little 5 GB DJ plans is a joke you will need 100 GB minimum.

Centova cast is a wonderful Back-up Plan if your stream ever drops the auto DJ will pick up and begin streaming so that your listeners do not get cut off your station. Remember when I first started I could not afford an auto DJ plan before I had a sponsor and that cost me a lot of listeners. Your stream cuts out too many times You've Lost That listener and they will not and I repeat not come back.

So now we've talked about audience targeting your stream server and audio quality. The next thing you will need is lots of patience and of course at first it's going to cost you a ton of money I'm not going to be quiet about it or beat around the bush it's going to cost you money. You can figure between 100 and $110 a month on your station this will include the server Auto DJ and your music licensing. Licensing is going to be the number one cost because you will be paying at least $90 a month for licensing alone.

The next thing we need to talk about is Radio automation software. If you do not have a separate streamer and an audio processor mixing board and all the fun stuff you can still sound good but you're going to need to buy a piece of software with built-in audio processing. As an album rocker there is nothing better and for the money that you will spend and I have ran through tons of radio software programs such a Sam broadcaster which that program is a resource intensive program. Most radio automation software should not be ran on anything less than 8GB of RAM if you're planning on running Windows 7 or higher. With 8 gigs of RAM you can take requests you can go on the web and check out your stations progress heck you can even download music at the same time and you will not have any glitches in your computer. I do it all the time I've even ran TeamSpeak at the same time as my station no hiccups no separate computers all ran on one laptop not a single hiccup or glitch. The trick is a fast processor you want the fastest you can afford 3 gigahertz of speed or higher it don't even think about running single core processors they will not work for radio station use. I suggest a gaming computer if you can afford it such as an Alienware or a good Dell laptop or HP running a true Athlon or Intel processor none of that Celeron crap.

Now that you've got that information I recommend nextkast with its built-in audio processor that is very good and the software has a very slim learning curve it is one of the easiest softwares to run. The audio processor in the software is so damn good that when the FCC visited me they looked around for my external processor no joke so if you run this program you will sound good if not you're doing something wrong.

After you get your station up and running it is important to tell the local folks in your area about your station. One way to do it is to attend social events such as karaoke night. If you do a song or two be sure to mention your station and be sure to sing songs that are in your radio station's format. This gives the people and idea of what you're going to be playing. Find out if the owners at Ma and Pa's stores or bars will allow you to put up a sticker or flyer or some type of poster about your station. Get on your Town's Facebook page and post about it. Make sure everyone in your town is aware that you run a radio station and what type of station you run. If you're doing part 15 am broadcasting give the frequency and your approximate range. This lets the folks know how to find you. Make sure your website has an app for your radio station you may find websites that do free apps for you such as nobex which has a free app builder. You can also use a short URL link if you can't afford a personal web address and use something like Wix to make your website.

Your site should have your radio stations mission meaning what are you trying to accomplish. Mine clearly states that the general idea is to break you free of the shackles of top 40 rap and explains how rap head-wound radio since 1984. So a mission statement is necessary so that the audience knows what type of station they are going to tune to. Also widgets are very important a stream licensing has those and people will see the songs that you play on your website. Don't forget the PayPal donation button that will help you trust me if people think you're good they will donate and donations help to pay for your equipment the high cost of Licensing and keep you pretty much a float.

Last but not least we will talk about how you can tell fake listeners from real listeners. This involves knowing a little bit about computers and software and when that software was made. For example if you see a listener using iTunes 4.0 you already know that's a fake listener they haven't used that since Windows 95. Also when Aunt 5.0 that is a fake listener. When it has gone up to five point 81 I believe my point is is that it's way higher than 5.0 and has been for quite a few years now. If you don't know when that software agent came out look it up in Google. Centova Cast allows you to look at the agents that they're listening to you with. So you can tell if it's a fake listener or not and if you're not sure there are many Internet Radio forums whereas people can help you but I can tell you a lot of fake agent softwares.

My listener base even at night at 3 for in the morning has at least seven listeners and in the daytime I would say my lowest value is around 11. We're talking the low value here during the day. The reason for so is that I've done a lot of leg work plus social media work and it did help when people heard me on the air because when they got out of range they heard me on the internet as I advertise the website plenty of times. Like I said don't be afraid to socialize and if you can get cards made out with your radio station on it give those cards to people you know like that type of music that you play. Doing this helps get the word out because they will tell their friends and word spreads.

Don't Be Afraid however if a listener request something that is outside of your format sometimes they will do it purposely to test you to see if you are really what you say you are. Stick to your guns the ones that are dedicated to the format that you are trying to have an image of will appreciate you and they will donate to your station. Remind your listeners they don't have to have a satellite subscription to enjoy X format that you're playing. This eases their mind when it comes to a thought about donations. You might be surprised I've had donations up to $300 in one donation and as low as $10 don't expect everyone to donate hundreds of dollars I'm just saying you never know what you'll get the point is if you have 20 listeners and they donate 10 bucks a piece it's not long before that adds up and it helps you to pay for expensive equipment and we all know how expensive this hobby is. Make sure that you mention that your station is a non-profit station you are not corporate people appreciate that and they will donate to you.

I wish some of you folks that are having difficulties in this project look because it took me a long time to get where I'm at right now it is not easy I will tell you that and if you're dedicated you will make it but if you're not dedicated you will fail and eventually get tired of it and shut down. It's all up to you if you're willing to do the work then the rewards are great but it's not going to come without Growing Pains so get ready for them and if you have a spouse hopefully that spouse is supportive and what you're doing.

Legacy said......One example would be if you're playing old country such as Buck Owens Tammy Wynette Johnny Cash Charley Pride June Carter Loretta Lynn and so on. You would not turn around in mix that with something like Taylor Swift. Doing so would be sacrilegious to the folks that love the old country format. Keep in mind to that folks that listen to the older style of music especially old country or even Blues like Muddy Waters pay a fortune for good audiophile equipment so you're station had damn well better have good audio. Streaming in anything less than 128 k MP3 is unacceptable unless you plan on streaming in AAC Plus which then you can stream at 64k in stereo.

I am guilty of this a bit, by straying outside the main theme of my format a bit as I can keep the main core of the intended format but not be exclusive to that to not broaden it a bit. Not be so rigid to get a chance of an extra listener but If I don't like it it never gets played. I even have some "old" country in the mix.

Example.....I am 50s 60s and 70s rock and roll hits but there's "some" eighties, mostly carry overs from the 70s and Canadian content but I also have some things like " Hit and Run" by Girlschool etc etc. Not being so rigid in a format sets us apart from the commercial stations even more that just doing what they don't do.
I like Part 15 Engineer's approach.

What will NEVER get played is anything electronically generated. Synthesized music of any kind.

Our LPFM runs 24/7 and when no programming is scheduled we run a very eclectic mix of music. Like TheLegacy we try to find deep cuts. I like driving to work listening to say, "Let Me Hear You Knocking" by The Rolling Stones and the song is still playing as  I arrive at work.

The broadcast software we use is RadioBoss . It runs nicely and is capable of streaming.

Our streaming provider is Live365. We pay extra to avoid ad insertion. The cost to the university is $79 per month. This covers all licensing in the United States.