Too many radio stations?

[Mayedd]

Here is a point to ponder. Having visited these forums for some time I see the same thing happening again and again. That is - loads of stations desperate for DJs! It gets easier (and cheaper) to launch a station but filling them with live content is hard as there seem to be only a limited amount of DJs looking for stations. It amuses me when I see stations on here grab ANY DJ that says they are looking for a slot. Often with the line "you seem to suit our station really well". No I am in the same boat as everyone else in that I am always looking to increase the amount of DJs on my station but part of me thinks there are too many stations with too few DJs. When I look into a lot of stations I see 2 best friends doing 2 shows a week trying to get more people desperately. Now I do not want to stand in the way of people's dreams/plans but I see so many stations fold because they just can't get enough interest. I wonder if syndication is the way forward for people starting out. Get enough followers who are interested in what you do then try and build them up into DJs themselves. When there are enough of you then formulate a station.
Anyway, enough of my ramblings. What do you think? Please feel free to disagree with me.
thanks
Edd - Owner of A1Radio.co.uk

 

[General Lighting]

I agree to some extent but I think the real issues are with the operational methods/quality control of some stations. I come from a former pirate background but also work with licensed FM community stations in the UK (BTW I would say A1 radio is equal to the best of these).

firstly there are definitely different types of stations and listener demographic - for instance many EDM fans are perfectly happy with a "non linear" form of listening to radio (such as pre recorded mixes or a repeat of a live show) with non stop beat mixed music and minimal chat / jingles (this varies on genres, some shows do have MC's and rappers who are equally popular). Often this is because they are spread across the entire world so what might be prime time evening in England is the early morning in Singapore and vice versa!

Other stations clearly want to emulate the popular "zoo format" radio of the 1980s, or talk formats or specialist documentary content. All these, done well, are as good as and often even better than the national or local broadcasters - they do not have the technical limitations of FM audio transmission or the obsolete encoding formats used in DAB, nor the politics and bureaucracy, nor the Communications Ministry breathing down your neck like a normal broadcast station (or even have to hide from them like a pirate must!)

But there are a great deal of less good stations. I see many where the websites are half done, in barely intelligible English (or the local language) and the audio content (when actually present) is grossly distorted to the point of being unlistenable (a particularly bad practice is to stream above 0dBFS audio level, just because your soundcard might allow it without everything sounding rough doesn't mean the distant listeners equipment will tolerate this), or the stations output is often erratic.

In some cases the people running the stations are very young indeed, still in their teens and high school age so this can be forgiven. Its after all better than what happened when I was a teen - which usually involved building a stentor or similar low budget FM transmitter or worse getting involved with some pirate stations which in my country (UK) were also linked to drugs dealing and crime (to replace confiscated equipment) or just provide courage to the operators as well as illegal broadcasting!

I admit I did all of these things once and I did have fun but some close calls and and now at age 40 feel a bit sheepish about some of it, and lucky I did not get in too much bother!

But for these young people I would also still suggest they team up in a bigger group and work together, and that they do it for a fun pastime or because they genuinely like their music or content, not simply to be "cool" As that is one of the good aspects of what we did as pirates (albeit often because the cost of equipment was too much for just one person alone).

 

[Ste Crook]

Hmmmm, a little intrigued with the previous post, what part of the UK are you from? You make it sound awful, pirate radio stations linked to drugs and crime. Theres none of that where I am from, pirate fm stations were like 20 - 30 years ago.

Yes there may be too many online radio stations, however many of these are auto-dj systems on servers, and this shines through, auto dj systems are nowhere near as good as a proper playout system, theres no such seg's, no sweepers and pretty poor rotation. The stations with a good sound, good rotations and a good online presence shine through online today.

 

[General Lighting]

Hmmmm, a little intrigued with the previous post, what part of the UK are you from? You make it sound awful, pirate radio stations linked to drugs and crime. Theres none of that where I am from, pirate fm stations were like 20 - 30 years ago.

Originally London though lived in SE England and now in East Anglia.

It definitely happened and still happens to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the stations and who was involved. Drugs and crime are always in the shadows of any music scene, even mainstream pop, hence why the Councils and Police put what might seem like heavy restrictions and controls on gigs, raves and festivals. all it is is that young people seek new experiences and sometimes get into bad situations doing so, thankfully we have various social structures in place to protect them (such as Ofcom licensing community broadcasters and the rise of internet broadcasting)

Even more recently a pirate in my region (across the border in North Essex) closed not because Ofcom got to them (in spite of their TX antenna being infiltrated into an Arqiva site!!!) but because the "station manager" was funding it by the sales of home grown weed and imported cocaine, for which he received 10 years imprisonment (his running of the pirate was only mentioned as a side issue in Court).

 

[General Lighting]

Yes there may be too many online radio stations, however many of these are auto-dj systems on servers, and this shines through, auto dj systems are nowhere near as good as a proper playout system, theres no such seg's, no sweepers and pretty poor rotation. The stations with a good sound, good rotations and a good online presence shine through online today.

On this note it depends how the auto-DJ is used, I agree that it is not the best thing for playing out sequential tracks/short content and there are affordable or even free playout systems around (radiodj.ro is promising though requires some tech skills to deploy), and charliedavy in Essex UK makes some other affordable software).

That does of course mean you need to leave a PC switched on 24/7 in your home studio, though hardware is cheap these days, and even a second hand one that would not play todays computer games will suffice.

But with the auto DJ software provided here there is no reason why it cannot be used to play out larger blocks of audio content like a pre-recorded show which can have any kind of imaging that you want. it is well suited to the style of EDM shows where a DJ spends more time on beat mixing than talking/interviews, and can be set up to schedule shows well (there seem to be no more gaps than you would get if you actualy had a bank of analogue tape carts and reel to reel machines like the old days!)

Also many listeners especially younger ones do not want to hear excessive sweepers and jingles or branding.

Its not like a normal analogue station where these are used to distinguish between competing stations in a packed frequency allocation (especially if users still have analogue tuning radios) or only the RDS display shows the branding (and it is illegal to make it dynamically change in most EU countries as its viewed as a traffic safety risk).

Those listeners know what they have tuned into as they selected it from a website or mobile phone app - so interaction is as well served via websites, forums etc and real humans behind them who act as part of a community...

 

[Female81]

I make use of Radionomy's Online Radio Manager, a kind of a auto-dj system, and you can do everything you want with it. In fact, I play lots of jingles, compared to many other non-stop stations.

And the rotation depends on yourself, how you fill music folders/build the clocks/etcetera.

About the 'Also many listeners especially younger ones do not want to hear excessive sweepers and jingles or branding' line above: Imaging can help to distinguish yourself from the about 4303580330 other internet stations with a similar music style. Something which is even more difficult when it's a non-stop station.

 

[General Lighting]

I make use of Radionomy's Online Radio Manager, a kind of a auto-dj system, and you can do everything you want with it. In fact, I play lots of jingles, compared to many other non-stop stations.

The Centovacast autoDJ on here certainly seems capable of doing this, although on the stations I have used

About the 'Also many listeners especially younger ones do not want to hear excessive sweepers and jingles or branding' line above: Imaging can help to distinguish yourself from the about 4303580330 other internet stations with a similar music style. Something which is even more difficult when it's a non-stop station.

This is true, but I think its a manner of getting the right balance and also the format.

For instance I think for our local community radio station that also transmits on FM there is not enough imaging, (which I am working on sorting out) but with the specialist dance music online station I help out (there are streams for each genre) some prefer non stop music (they know who the DJ's are) and jingles only before and after each show.

I know that in NL even the pirates put a lot of effort into imaging, I heard one from EPC (a seasonal pirate) where they trying to sound like a SLAM FM type jingle, with all the sound/voice effects and then the voiceover hesitates and forgets what he means to say, then a girl reminds him they are broadcasting from the potato storage barn

 

[Mayedd]

Well it was some time ago that I posted my thoughts and I see by looking in the volunteering section that exactly the same things are happening. I say good luck to us all in getting DJs etc but my my its going to be tough. Since posting I have added a couple of great DJs to my station but its very tough out there! Often once approached when I look into the quality of the persons applying it is very low! Now I feel a bit mean and don't intend to sound elitest (my own technique needs lots of work) but its very rare that a £5 tesco headset mic and a hooky copy of SAM is going to result in a slick (ish) show/DJ. I am very fortunate in that I built myself a radio studio and that many of my DJ's have a very strong technical ability which usually results in a half decent output. Good luck to all out there and may your stations be successful.

Mayedd

 

[jambo]

Its quite ironic that you started this topic as I posted a similar topic on another forum some time ago, I did read your original post some time ago but did not have the time to reply when I initially read it.

Below you can read the topic that I posted on the other forum but incidentally my views have slightly changed since posting it and I also sympathise with you in trying to get quality DJs for your station.

We recently posted asking for DJs but in a different manner to some of the other stations, we asked for prospective DJs to get in touch if they felt that they had something that they could offer our station as we are quite unique in our target audience who are Taxi Drivers! Some of the demo's that I listened to were OKish and I tried to offer advice to those who sent the demos in so that they could improve their demo but I felt that from some of the replies that we received when we offered feedback that the DJs were getting upset!

When listening to internet radio stations I have come across some very professional presenters and some who are excellent and also some who are truly appalling but the thing that strikes me about all of them, good or bad, is that they all take pride in what they do and they all enjoy what they are doing so to that end, who am I to criticise.

Just imagine if all of the good presenters got together and formed an internet radio station then we might be able to put something together that could actually rival traditional commercial radio.

But anyway enough of my ranting, here was the topic that I posted some time ago:

[h=2]Internet Radio Stations asking for DJs sometimes make me laugh?[/h]

It appears to me that nearly every single internet radio station struggles to attract DJs/Presenters judging by the posts on other forums 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​

 

[JudgeJoey]

£5 head not good.

Correct me if I am wrong here:

You mean to tell us that you use a £5.00 head-set for Dj ing? Not good. If you are looking for a Good Microphone, sure microphone is the best you can get. And if you are looking for a proper pair of head phones?
Marshall or Sony! Expensive, does the job, and comfortable. Do not get the slickish copy of Sam Broadcaster. Or you can download it. SAM Broadcaster (hope this has been a help to you)

Thanks.

Well it was some time ago that I posted my thoughts and I see by looking in the volunteering section that exactly the same things are happening. I say good luck to us all in getting DJs etc but my my its going to be tough. Since posting I have added a couple of great DJs to my station but its very tough out there! Often once approached when I look into the quality of the persons applying it is very low! Now I feel a bit mean and don't intend to sound elitest (my own technique needs lots of work) but its very rare that a £5 tesco headset mic and a hooky copy of SAM is going to result in a slick (ish) show/DJ. I am very fortunate in that I built myself a radio studio and that many of my DJ's have a very strong technical ability which usually results in a half decent output. Good luck to all out there and may your stations be successful.

Mayedd

 

[lockylive]

There are a lot of stations but I would expect this to increase rather a lot, certainly the internet radio market is expanding fast even from a listener point of view and with 3G/4G only ever on the increase and slowly making it's way into cars etc then internet radio is clearly the future.

As for DJ's, auto-play, people not wanting jingles etc. What a load of BS. Quit fooling yourself people, if they didnt want a a DJ or didnt mind the odd jingle/ident here and there then they would not be looking to listen to a station but would just use their ipod or spotify or something.

I believe the key is the initial product of the station. If you have a set goal, an image you want the station to be and stick to your guns then providing the overall idea is a good one, your DJ's will come looking for you because they will want to be part of your product. Same goes for the listeners. We have quick jingles, we have a logo that is fun and instantly recognisable and people love it.
One of the biggest mistakes I see is that people think they have an online station and can tackle the world. No disrespect but many of you are biting off more than you can chew. If you want this to work, you need to treat it like a business and not a bit of fun/hobby. Our station still uses AutoDJ when we dont have someone available live but we're working on getting rid of that just as soon as we can.

 

[Mayedd]

There are a lot of stations but I would expect this to increase rather a lot, certainly the internet radio market is expanding fast even from a listener point of view and with 3G/4G only ever on the increase and slowly making it's way into cars etc then internet radio is clearly the future.

As for DJ's, auto-play, people not wanting jingles etc. What a load of BS. Quit fooling yourself people, if they didnt want a a DJ or didnt mind the odd jingle/ident here and there then they would not be looking to listen to a station but would just use their ipod or spotify or something.

I believe the key is the initial product of the station. If you have a set goal, an image you want the station to be and stick to your guns then providing the overall idea is a good one, your DJ's will come looking for you because they will want to be part of your product. Same goes for the listeners. We have quick jingles, we have a logo that is fun and instantly recognisable and people love it.
One of the biggest mistakes I see is that people think they have an online station and can tackle the world. No disrespect but many of you are biting off more than you can chew. If you want this to work, you need to treat it like a business and not a bit of fun/hobby. Our station still uses AutoDJ when we dont have someone available live but we're working on getting rid of that just as soon as we can.

I think you are right here. I listen to my station all the time be it at home, in car, walking etc. Stations often try to be too big too soon. Makes me laugh when I see adverts for traffic reporters etc. When you go to their websites you see there are 3 DJs and the rest of the time is auto DJ. We have worked hard to replace playlist operation and are nearly there. We would rather repeat live shows than simply have music chuntering away. As already stated - most people would rather have Spotify anyway.

 

[General Lighting]

I agree that branding is important but there isn't any "one size fits all" - a community broadcaster, a dance broadcaster and one dedicated to a faith group are going to have totally different types of presentation, but in all cases content and quality is most important.

BTW jingles arose because on a normal terrestrial radio station you are obliged by international law to identify the station at least every 15 minutes (this applies to anything that generates a radio signal and does not automatically identify itself such as a mobile phone or WLAN equipment)

I actually ended up going back into broadcast engineering because of my work asissting online stations (including one which regularly makes the "top ten" listeners there), although much of the branding/networking is interlinked with our very popular Internet forum. we do have a couple of jingles but what makes our station(s) popular is that they contain a significant amount proper beatmached DJ sets, including live shows at weekends.

One thing perhaps younger people (< 20 years old) overlook is that by the mid 2000s (at least in the UK and NL) there were already "too many radio stations" on the normal terrestrial radio - by that time the whole of Band II had been allocated for broadcasting, new local commercial stations started up, community broadcasters were licensed and becoming a pirate had become cheaper as the rise in the use of mobile telephones meant that a lot of radio equipment that could be modified to become a pirate Band II (FM) transmitter was being sold off for scrap value on the surplus market.

This led to many stations merging and reducing the number of presenters - as an example the smaller commercial station in Suffolk has only about 5 presenters, who also do other behind the scenes jobs. It is also why in the UK we have so many "clone" stations with the same 1980s style zoo fomat shows (which curiously a lot of online broadcasters seem to want to emulate).

for a community broadcaster (more similar to a online station as everyone is a volunteer) we have 80 presenters but there is a lot of admin work behind the scenes, the harsh facts are that you do have to run it as a business even if you are not making money off it (you might just about be able to cover your costs).

Its is definitely true the rise of 3G/4G mobiles and more generous data plans is increasing the reach of online radio, but with that comes other issues.

The first is that your listener is ultimately paying to listen to you (even if its just the bite it takes out of their data allowance they could be using that for something else) so your content has to be good, the second is that the "big guys" such as the EBU are looking very closely at these developments, and soon enough so will the telecoms companies and Communications Ministries (similar to how the copyright lawyers are looking more closely at online broadcasters).

I don't think they will "kill the golden goose" by introducing excessive regulation (its not like terrestrial frequency allocations where there is a limit of how many signals can fit into one place without interference) and there are other issues such as the international nature of online radio - but I'd keep a sharper lookout on how the big commercial broadcasters react to this "competition" as they are skilled as using any applicable regulations against their rivals.

In any case I think (especially if you are transmitting to anyone who might be on the road) it is worth adopting an informal system of "quality control".

This doesn't mean censoring your content or restricting what your DJs/presenters play (unless you want your station to be "family friendly" - even then your watershed will only apply to your local and adjacent timezones) but means simple stuff like avoiding long silences or jarring changes in volume between tracks/shows or displaying distracting messages on a mobile device, basically anything that could distract a driver or cyclist.

Even though its as much a matter of personal responsiblity of the road user (I personally do not listen to music when in a car or on my bike because as a sound engineer I do "concentrate too much" on it) the regulators do pick up on this aspect of broadcasting quality. In any case long silences and levels all over the place sound rubbish even to a static listener.

 

[telabadmanwot]

BTW jingles arose because on a normal terrestrial radio station you are obliged by international law to identify the station at least every 15 minutes (this applies to anything that generates a radio signal and does not automatically identify itself such as a mobile phone or WLAN equipment)



This led to many stations merging and reducing the number of presenters - as an example the smaller commercial station in Suffolk has only about 5 presenters, who also do other behind the scenes jobs. It is also why in the UK we have so many "clone" stations with the same 1980s style zoo fomat shows (which curiously a lot of online broadcasters seem to want to emulate).



Even though its as much a matter of personal responsiblity of the road user (I personally do not listen to music when in a car or on my bike because as a sound engineer I do "concentrate too much" on it) the regulators do pick up on this aspect of broadcasting quality. In any case long silences and levels all over the place sound rubbish even to a static listener.

I always enjoy reading your posts Alex, I never knew the history behind jingles.

I noticed the conglomeration of stations and over here, it seems to be happening once again with the recession.

Your advice is spot on, sometimes stations overlook the basics, levels are very very important.

BTW when I became a DJ and went clubbing it drove me insane listening to a badly mixed set.

 

[General Lighting]

I noticed the conglomeration of stations and over here, it seems to be happening once again with the recession.

This does however result in a great quantity of studio grade equipment being sold off very cheaply (its where most community radio stations obtain their equipment from).

A fair bit finds its way to Ebay too but it is often far bulkier than a normal club DJ or project studio setup (though not impossible to deploy if you are lucky enough to have a spare room available for this purpose). You don't have to be an electronic genius to connect it up but it often uses D-sub connectors as well as XLRs so some skills with a soldering iron are handy.

 

[Mayedd]

This does however result in a great quantity of studio grade equipment being sold off very cheaply (its where most community radio stations obtain their equipment from).

A fair bit finds its way to Ebay too but it is often far bulkier than a normal club DJ or project studio setup (though not impossible to deploy if you are lucky enough to have a spare room available for this purpose). You don't have to be an electronic genius to connect it up but it often uses D-sub connectors as well as XLRs so some skills with a soldering iron are handy.

Would love to get my hands on an old working Audix desk. Used one at my first station (hospital radio). Was only working in mono and was in a terrible state but I loved it dearly.

 

[telabadmanwot]

This does however result in a great quantity of studio grade equipment being sold off very cheaply (its where most community radio stations obtain their equipment from).

A fair bit finds its way to Ebay too but it is often far bulkier than a normal club DJ or project studio setup (though not impossible to deploy if you are lucky enough to have a spare room available for this purpose). You don't have to be an electronic genius to connect it up but it often uses D-sub connectors as well as XLRs so some skills with a soldering iron are handy.

Glad you brought this up Alex. I am looking in to the possability of getting a short run 30 or 100 day FM broadcast license and i really wanted to have an informal chat with you about how things work. You really sound like you know your profession inside out. Is there any way i could contact you, by email or skype maybe?

 

[jambo]

Would love to get my hands on an old working Audix desk. Used one at my first station (hospital radio). Was only working in mono and was in a terrible state but I loved it dearly.

If you are looking for an old working Audix mixing console I might have just what you are looking for, I bought one about 6 months ago and have never used it as I found it too big for where I wanted to use it hence it has sat in my garage since getting it home.

It is in good condition with lots of connecting cables and a schematic diagram from Audix of the wiring of the mixer.

I am willing to let it go to recoup what I paid for it.

Let me know if you are interested.

Rgds

Jambo

 

[spangle creations]

more info

Hi Jamie ! how u doing buddy , tell us a a bit more about it . have you got any photos of it you can let us have alook at . cheers steve

 

[Mayedd]

If you are looking for an old working Audix mixing console I might have just what you are looking for, I bought one about 6 months ago and have never used it as I found it too big for where I wanted to use it hence it has sat in my garage since getting it home.

It is in good condition with lots of connecting cables and a schematic diagram from Audix of the wiring of the mixer.

I am willing to let it go to recoup what I paid for it.

Let me know if you are interested.

Rgds

Jambo

Could be interested if its working ok! Can I email you? Feel free to email me edd@a1radio.co.uk