Webcasting back before roylaties were required

[Mid West Clubber]

Anyone here a veteran that used to run their own server on Shoutcast using a dial up modem,, holding like 5 listeners back before royalties and licensing became a factore.. Remember when Shoucast was only like 5 pages and you could go a week without a listener.. and it wasnt really feasible to broadcast 24/7?

[Bill DeFelice]

I actually played with Live365 back as far as 1999 or so and even played with Real's audio encoder around the same time (or before that). Playing over a dial up connection was quite a challenge, especially when you're testers didn't have another phone to tell you when things dropped or acted funny. This was well before CRAP (oops, CARP) and the death of internet radio as we knew it.

[Alan McCall]

Mid West Clubber,

I wasn't ever on Shoutcast, but I was the first person in my area to begin streaming back
in 2001. Everyone told me it would never catch on.

Live365 was a free service then..but I remember going for days with only maybe 1 listener.

And, because I was having to manually feed the program material, I ran the stream from 7:30 in the morning until around 8 in the evening.

It was novel enough that the local paper sent a reporter and a photographer out and they ran a story about it, with a picture of me in my first studio.

July 9 marked nine years of streaming for me.

[Mid West Clubber]

thanks guys  Thats awesome,, yeah I been around off and on and yeah I pay my royalties now,, But im not getting enough listeners to keep my interest,, Why my station is often dark.   Tell me more.

[TheX-KXRX]

thanks guys  Thats awesome,, yeah I been around off and on and yeah I pay my royalties now,, But im not getting enough listeners to keep my interest,, Why my station is often dark.   Tell me more.

Well I have streamed since around 1999 not so much radio but audio streams for various projects and companies, I own PacWest Media www.pacwestmedia.com but the station is only about a year old...

Our first year I only did a show on weekends everything else I voice tracked and I let the station sputter along on auto pilot while I put my efforts into the marketing and making sure people knew how and could easily find us... One year later I have a dedicated core audience built through the web site, social media, and various listing sources.

Our second year we are ready to introduce more live radio and scheduled programming, and do events in the community to make the local population aware of us.

It is a like anything else you just keep taking small steps forward and pretty soon you reach a point where the snowball begins rolling on its own and people will do you advertising for you posting links and telling friends etc...

The big key is you need to be streaming 24/7 if possible because the first time somebody trys to reach you and you are offline they are likely off to other things for good... If they tune in and its AutoDJ and Voice Tracked they won't mind if the music and content is good... They come back

[stuckinthe50s]

Back in 1999 I ran an Icecast server from home on a cable internet connection; 10 max listeners.  It was listed on Shoutcast and often maxed out.  But then CARP started and I got a little nervous about not being legal.  I shut it down and joined the free legal service of Live365. Been there ever since.  Live365 was a lot more fun when it was free with almost unlimited listeners. I often hit over 300. 

Ahh, those were the good old days.