Can't radio stations broadcast on certain days?

[icycool7227]

I am very disappointed that there hasn't been a new station streaming except for KZLK She 106-3 in months. Couldn't the smaller stations afford to stream only like 3 days of the week every week? Why don't they do that? If I email that suggestion to any such station would they listen to me and do it? I want to hear WARQ Rock 93.5, KZRS Star 107.9, and KSMX Mix 107.5 the most.

Or just stream for a month. This is not fair at all. I hate those royalty companies.

[V.Riley]

Streaming cost its self is fairly cheap.  Even a piss poor radio station should be able to stream to at least a handful of listeners with out breaking the budget.  However, having said that.  Royalties could be the killer.  Although radio stations know that Internet streaming is no longer the experimental hobby it was a decade ago, there is that haunting royalty that makes the radio execs wonder if it is even worth it.  While I still think we need royalty parity, I do think it is worth it.  I've been running the internet version of STAR 107.9 - America's First 80s Station since the terrestrial station flipped formats back in 2001 with the growing help of the DJs and the original Program Director.  We are no longer exclusively listened to by people sitting at their computers.  Listeners have hooked us up to their home stereo systems, and smart phones.  We are mobile, depending on your 3G coverage in your area, you can take us on your travel to work.  Given that fact, I should look into traffic reports.  We already do weather reports on Friday for the weekend.

So why don't some radio stations stream?  You'd have to ask them to get their take on it.  There is a local AM station that I wished would stream, as I like the music they play, but the static I get when I pass a transformer, or the fade out going under bridges, not to mention they reduce their power at sunset and I can't get them keep me from listening to them on the actual radio for any length of time.  Over all, I think that they may believe that it is not worth the trouble, but maybe one day in the near future they will change their mind.  After all its not boom boxes we are buying this Christmas, its smart phones and wireless devices.  That should tell them where their listeners are going.  What I'm saying is, if you are a radio station and you want listeners to listen to you, you need to be where the listeners are going.

(stepping down off the soap box)

Vincent Riley
Program Director
STAR1079.com

[OhioMediaWatch]

Vincent, how does one listen to your station on a smartphone?

I'm on my PC now, but I don't see any options for smartphones...though I presumably could just try the regular streams.

[bobperry]

What smartphone do you carry?  The iPhone has a shoutcast app that will pick up most anything streaming and showing up on the Shoutcast yellowpages.

[OhioMediaWatch]

I have a Droid, though I probably could just pump the existing streams into one of my players.  I just haven't tried yet.

What is "Mix Talk"?  It's a strange, sounding like telephone-fed show on psychic phenomenon that I heard on Star1079.com after midnight last night...

[V.Riley]

Yes you can listen to STAR1079.com on a smart phone.  I use http://www.yourmuze.fm to play the station through my Droid.  They do have a new app, but I haven't tried that yet.  I just added STAR 107.9 to 'My Stations' at Your Muse and selected the bit rate I wanted to receive it at and I can enjoy the music. The nice thing about Your Muse is that you can adjust the bit rate, so if your phone can't handle 128Kbps, you can down size it.

As for the "Mix Talk", you are correct.  We switch our stream to that on Wednesday and Friday mornings at midnight for about 55 minutes.  Kind of a barter deal I'm doing with Mix Talk.