Stations looking for DJs, some posts make me laugh!!!!!

[jambo]

It appears to me that nearly every single internet radio station struggles to attract DJs/Presenters judging by the posts on this forum and others and yet when prospective DJs/Presenters reply to the thread they are directed to "apply online" and sent of to a webpage or asked to send a CV to a given email address as though the station owner is doing the DJ/Presenter some sort of favour by condescending to allow the DJ to broadcast on their hallowed radio station!

Well lets be totally frank here, their station cant be that good otherwise they would not be posting every week asking for DJs would they?

Also when prospective DJs do reply to a thread they are very rarely responded to by some of the people running these stations!

If you are running a radio station and want to fill up your schedule and a DJ expresses an interest in broadcasting on your station then basically you should do all the chasing, after all you are not offering any payment for their services but rather they are offering their services on a voluntary basis to help you with the promotion of your station and to enable you to attract more listeners to your station.

I get the impression that when some people start up an internet radio station they get a bit above themselves and think they are something better than they are, well when you start paying DJs lots of money then I would personally allow you that stance, but when you are asking for volunteers you need to be humble and thank them for their interest and their help with your station. Please don't forget that most DJs will also bring along their own listeners with them who will tune into your station.

Running a radio station can be very time consuming with chasing after DJs and programming in pre recorded shows, setting up radio imaging and other stuff, it can also get quite expensive the more you get into it.

Where some are concerned it would be better to DJ on someone else's station rather than set up another radio station that will be short of DJs and keep posting asking for Presenters?

Well I have had my moan, what do you think......lol

 

[General Lighting]

There have actually been similar comments on radioforum.nl, and some very frank (but valuable) advice to a young chap setting up his own online radio station (this is where the term "Dutch Uncle" comes from, although in this case there were some "aunts" too giving the useful advice)

The harsh facts are many (younger?) people don't realise just how lean the mainstream radio industry is these days - though it might seem they have some nice toys at say a BBC studio or the Hilversum broadcast complex, they were obtained during better times in the 90s/2000s and those staff who are paid are all on short term contracts and can be laid off at any time and many in the UK are unpaid interns. (not sure if this happens as much in NL, but if anyone in radio gets paid its increasingly near the minimum wage for the region (where that exists)), and they often have to take second jobs to survive.

Here in Britain, local commercial stations and community stations are struggling to stay on air and especially small commercials are therefore becoming more conservative with their programming so as to get the most advertising, and to keep the listeners who are middle class, affluent and have money to spend.

With Internet stations there is even less money and more competition - if you fill up your station with 5 minute ad blocks even if you can get them folk will just tune out. There are important operational differences, an online presenter will usually have invested in their own equipment which is a substantial outlay, as well as the crowd they bring to the station.

Another thing I've seen is stuff like trying to enforce what software or social networks presenters use, which I don't think goes down very well as some of the software suggested is quite expensive and/or not suited to DJ'ing other styles of music. (Incidentally all the live shows on Party Vibe are usually analogue all the way through to the PC doing the shoutcast encoding!)

Better to keep the station policy just to having sensible scheduling/mixing of genres, and that the sound is good quality and there are not too many silences at changeover points...

TBH I fully agree that groups of people are better working together to form a station, especially as in the future when Internet broadcasting becomes more feasible to listen to via mobile networks, at that point these telecoms networks will increasingly start wanting their cut, and the Communications Ministries will be looking at some form of regulatory structure, and thats the point where you need a proper management structure to fight your corner!

 

[jambo]

Totally agree with your reply, interesting you quote radio forum.nl as I have been having a look at that, seems to be a very popular forum! Do you speak Dutch or do you use a translator to view the forum.

Internet radio seems to be very popular in places like Holland and Germany and they have very healthy forums there, it does not seem as popular here in the UK as yet!

 

[General Lighting]

Totally agree with your reply, interesting you quote radio forum.nl as I have been having a look at that, seems to be a very popular forum! Do you speak Dutch or do you use a translator to view the forum.

I started learning in 2008 out of curiosity (as its the neighbouring European area to East Anglia), and have probably got to early high school level by now. So for instance I can read a fair bit of sites where younger folk hang out, and the emergency service news at 112nederland.nl but reading a longer forum post or a big article in De Volkskrant might mean looking up some words. I try to only use translators as a last resort, the interesting word order of Dutch (unique even amongst other Germanic languages) means that automatic translators can go horribly wrong and produce completely the opposite statement to what was intended...

Internet radio seems to be very popular in places like Holland and Germany and they have very healthy forums there, it does not seem as popular here in the UK as yet!

This is also to do with the strong support of tech related hobbies in these cultures, they are not seen as "uncool" as in Britain. Also Conrad electronics (similar to Maplin and CPC) sell wi-fi internet radios removing the "device barrier" (as computers don't always have the best loudspeakers or in built sound cards).

On that note Internet radio stations are also a good way of learning and improving your skills in another language, especially as shortwave and MF broadcasting is ceased and/or swamped with interference..

 

[jambo]

Good for you mate learning a new language, I have been using google translator to view the site, I did try registering but for some reason I cant get past the anti spam question at the bottom of the registration page........lol

 

[Female81]

Totally agree with your reply, interesting you quote radio forum.nl as I have been having a look at that, seems to be a very popular forum! Do you speak Dutch or do you use a translator to view the forum.

Internet radio seems to be very popular in places like Holland and Germany and they have very healthy forums there, it does not seem as popular here in the UK as yet!

Do you know some good German internet radio boards?

Can be interesting to read (Germany is one of my biggest 'markets').

I'm a frequent reader/poster at the Dutch 'Radioforum' board, btw.