This episode contains a free internet radio tutorial that will help you to get your own internet radio station online from idea to launch and at a minimal cost. Listen to Mike Russell describe how he started his own radio station in just 2 weeks.
Podcast Awards
Music Radio Creative is a proud prize sponsor of the Podcast Awards. You can get your tickets to attend the awards ceremony and NMX 2013 here. Each winning podcast will win a coupon to spend at Music Radio Creative. Good luck to all the nominated podcasts!
Podcast Awards founder Todd Cochrane shared some fascinating podcast statistics in his state of the Podcasting Union address. These especially caught my eye:
- Out of over 5000 entries to the Podcast Awards only 25% of shows did a weekly podcast.
- 23% did more than one episode per week.
- The other podcasts were bi-weekly, once a month or less.
- RawVoice and Blubrry stats show that podcasters who don’t do weekly shows grow 10 times slower than weeklies.
- Podcasters that do more than one show a week grow 8 times faster than weekly podcasts!
Food for thought! I’m thinking of launching a new podcast that will be daily.
Since my last episode about the Podcasts App vs Stitcher Smart Radio the Apple Podcasts app has been updated! Podcasts 1.1.2 includes a number of improvements, including, most importantly to me:
- Tapping a podcast in Top Stations now reveals episodes you can play.
- You can now easily turn on automatic downloads for all subscribed podcasts in Settings.
- Addresses an issue where previously played or deleted episodes unexpectedly reappear as new.
- Resolves an issue where Podcasts may unexpectedly play after a phone call or alarm.
- Includes additional stability and performance improvements.
I do love Stitcher but the X2 feature that speeds up podcast audio is not quite as fast as Apple’s X2.
Podcast Promotion and Feedback
Ray Ortega – The Podcasters’ Studio
In Ray’s latest episode he mentions a great tactic for cross promoting your podcasts on other podcasts. Call other podcasts you like or send them an mp3 with a question and remember to include your business name and website address in the audio. Many podcasters, myself included, will be grateful to receive some feedback and in most cases will play your feedback on their show and you’ll get some brilliant cross promotion!
Jon Buscall – Online Marketing & Communications
In episode 72 Jon gave a wonderful mention of Music Radio Creative. I really enjoyed the episode about the pulse of the sharing economy and Lisa Gansky mentioned a quote that really resonated with me, “the best people to work on your issue or problem don’t work for you and they never will”. Some great thoughts on crowdsourcing and outsourcing for business and a podcast I recommend.
Kevin Field emailed to say he’s loving my new internet radio station, especially the idea of combining voice overs and jingles with remixed music. He mentioned that it would be good to have a pop out radio player on the website so that users can continue listening when navigating to different pages and when they’ve left the radio station website.
Finally Steve Aggasild was in touch to say that he’s enjoying my Adobe Audition tutorials on YouTube as well as my previous episode on cloud internet radio solutions. Thank you for the email Steve! He was interested to hear about a good way to deal with voice tracks from radio hosts on your internet radio station. If you have a good solution for voice tracking on internet radio stations do let me know in the comments.
Internet Radio Equipment – Can You Get On Air Without Expensive Hardware?
You don’t need any gear at all to start an internet radio station. Perhaps an audio editor and microphone would be handy if you’d like to host a show on the air – take a look at my resources page for some ideas on great audio editing software and my recommendation for a decent microphone. Everything can be hosted in the cloud with no need for bulky hardware at your end.
Internet Radio Hosting
After comparing different internet radio hosts and trying out both Airtime Pro and Sam Vibe I decided to settle on listen2myradio as the internet radio host for my brand new radio station. They seemed to offer the best value package for my startup internet radio station and claim over 1,000,000 users of the service. You can host all your media files in the cloud with them and the auto DJ function perfectly rotates songs in your playlists when you’re not live. The Centova Cast control panel was also a big plus point for me with great features included.
SHOUTcast vs. Icecast
The option to stream your radio station with SHOUTcast or Icecast is provided in the listen2myradio premium sign up process. I debated which is better with a panel of experts on a recent audio production mastermind. I really want my internet radio station to reach the maximum amount of listeners and that is what finally swung me towards SHOUTcast as a solution as they have a rather large and popular internet radio directory.
Internet Radio Websites That Rock!
Internet radio sites need to be simple and you should consider the one action you want any visitor to your website to perform. The answer to that question should be ‘listen to my internet radio station’. In the recent audio production mastermind Shrey Puranik gave a great tip that you should have your listen live radio player and links to your different stream options listed above the fold on your website (e.g. your web visitor should be able to see the listening options on your website without having to scroll down).
If you want to create a website easily I recommend web hosting from Bluehost and running a website using WordPress (which takes minutes to install once you’ve joined Bluehost). You can read my resources page for a more detailed look at getting your own website online. I used a slightly adapted version of the free GamePress theme for WordPress to get the website online although I will consider a premium WordPress theme as my internet radio project develops and gains more interest.
An Internet Radio Tuner for Your Website
I was looking for a really good looking lightweight radio tuner for my internet radio site so that visitors could tune in with ease and see all the details, including the artwork, of the track now playing. I found what I was looking for in the PHP-Javascript Shoutcast and Icecast Plater from CodeCanyon (part of a group of websites a recommend on my resources page). I was especially interested in now playing data as the music on the radio station will be remixes of popular songs so I wanted to make it as easy as possible for listeners to track the songs down. The support from the app creator – nhstudio – has been fast and forthcoming too. The only thing I’ve noticed is that the player will not work on my iOS devices so my next project is to get some iPhone/iPad/Android listen live buttons online as mobile listening is on the increase.
Internet Radio Music Library
Now I am working on building up the music library to increase listener choice and variety. I’m using a combination Amazon MP3 (to buy new tracks), Google Keyword Tool (to research popular remixes) and my Spotify Premium subscription (to preview in full potential tracks I’d like to playlist).
Internet radio licensing and royalty rules that I discussed in a previous episode are very specific on the information you need to report back about your output. That’s another reason I have chosen listen2myradio as my internet radio host. The listener statistics are amazing in the Centova Cast control panel and it even creates monthly reports of all the music you play along with number of listeners to each individual track. This is all extremely handy for internet radio royalty reporting.
Internet Radio Jingles
All the jingles and voice overs on my brand new internet radio station are created by myself and the talented team at Music Radio Creative. If you’re interested in getting a great sound for your brand make sure to listen to this week’s podcast episode in full for a podcast listener special!
Internet Radio vs. Traditional Radio
Will internet radio eventually overtake traditional radio and dominate the ratings? I already listen to podcasts for most of my speech content and I get my music fix from a mix of internet radio stations and a Spotify Premium subscription. How do you listen to your music and speech content these days? Leave a comment and let me know.
