How to launch your internet radio

The author of these lines, when he was a top manager at state radio, had the opportunity to read dozens of business plans for private radio stations of various formats - from sports to those focused exclusively on club music. Accordingly, to obtain a classic broadcasting license is a virtually impossible task, not to mention the enormous financial costs associated with such an undertaking.

However, technological progress has made it possible to create your own radio station in a different technological reality - the Internet. Internet radio has already become a serious competitor to terrestrial broadcasting in many countries. After all, it is much easier to create, for example, highly specialized stations devoted entirely to a certain musical genre or based on a certain genre of journalism (for example, "talk" Internet radio is becoming very popular). In addition, Internet radio "sees" all its listeners and can accurately estimate its audience (an extremely important factor for advertisers), which is completely unrealistic for terrestrial radio.

How it works

And yet, how does it work? The first Internet radio stations were made on the basis of the airwaves: a studio with presenters, a sound engineer behind the wall at the mixing desk, and from there the signal goes to the broadcasting computer. Except that from there the finished product (what the consumer ultimately hears) is sent not to the radio transmitter, but directly to the World Wide Web (both variants are possible - this is how FM stations work, which duplicate their radio broadcasts on the Web). However, this model did not justify itself and quickly became a thing of the past. For two reasons. First, the cost of such a station is slightly lower than that of traditional radio. Secondly, Internet technologies make it possible to build the entire infrastructure of web-radio completely differently, opening up fundamentally new opportunities both for those who work on the air and for radio listeners. 

Technology

The technological scheme of a modern Internet radio station like Davidzon Radio can best be described using the example of A Plus Radio, which is closest to us. This web radio actually grew out of a local amateur project; its main driving force was and still is not financial resources, but the enthusiasm and passion for new technologies of both the founders of the station and its listeners. But as a consequence of this approach, despite its sufficient maturity and popularity, A Plus Radio to this day does not have its own unified on-air studio. Line DJs and author program hosts broadcast from home studios during their scheduled airtime. In a classic version, such a studio is a room in a regular apartment with more or less good sound insulation. Of technical equipment - a quality microphone, a simple mixing console and an ordinary PC. Plus, of course, broadband Internet access. From the home studios, the signal goes to a central server where the on-air signal is laid out. 

The central server not only processes signals from home studios, it also stores a database of music recordings and generates a playlist. The on-air signal (broadcast stream) is generated by the music editor, who generates the playlist via remote access and connects the author's programs at the right time. A playlist (a list of broadcasted music tracks) is formed using the well-known WinAmp. The method of making a list of music is combined: first it is made by a music editor, and then the program makes some changes - it adds the most popular hits, based on the results of the listener vote, conducted on the A Plus Radio site (the site and in the chat, on the listeners' communication channels). In general, the feedback technology in the structure of A Plus Radio pays special attention. The on-air DJ or author program host, and in most cases the music editor - they are all in constant two-way communication with the listeners.