RE: My lot are a registered company

Don't believe the hyple!

Oct72007

AS chum Stu says You'd think someone would have had this idea before...

(Yes, this is another reference to popex)

RE: Don't believe the hyple!

Bah, it's been done before.

Might play it anyway, just for nostalgic purposes. I wonder if they have a knobber door.

muddyfunkster :: 8 Oct :: 2007 :: Comment / reply

Quite. That site looks suspiciously empty, I don't think much of their terms and conditions or privacy policyeither. A knobber door is doubtful, a front for a spammer perhaps?

Did you give them your email addresses chaps ? They're just trying to take advantage of ex popex junkies who still need a fix !

I miss popex tho.

neuralnet :: 11 Oct :: 2007 :: Comment / reply

I didn't sign up

I miss popex too! I had about eight years of doing very little except going to gigs, listening to music and chatting with you guys, now I'm having to work quite hard! How about you, the radio station still going? I am a bit involved in something launching soon, but it's not DJ style radio.

I see your links didn't work, I think I've broken something, well that does make a change...

11 Oct :: 2007 :: Comment / reply

Good job too !

Nah, I'm afraid the station took a bit of a battering (DDOS attack) from a bunch of Turkish hackers who for no obvious reason took a dislike to the station website. They went after who they thought was our ISP & ended up taking out internet access for the SE govt for a day or so! Apparently there was traffic from over 90,000 independent IP addresses. Hmm, I think they rented a bot-net. I can only think that our light hearted banter suggesting they were better off getting girlfriends & leaving our website alone must have really pissed them off. I dunno.

After that, we sorta lost a bit of enthusiasm & when my friend running the server returned to the UK that was the final nail in the coffin. Ah well, it was fun for a couple of years. Most people that tuned in, listened for ages (av. listen time was about 3 hrs ;) but in the current climate it's virtually impossible to run an exclusively internet station & not lose money. That's not to mention the bill that's currently before congress that's set to put all current broadcasters that are still in business, out of action. That'll leave TimeWarner etc etc to move in & mop up.

looking forward to seeing what you've been up to !

neuralnet :: 18 Oct :: 2007 :: Comment / reply

Royalties? WHAT???

Were you paying royalties? This new site I'm involved with is all licensed up, I suspect it will be scuppered if the royalty rates really do go through the roof though.

18 Oct :: 2007 :: Comment / reply

Erm... ahem, well actually.. now you mention it..

The idea was always to build up a decent listenerbase and eventually try to go legit & pay royalties. The more I looked into it, the less it looked like it was possible to break even without using commercials, let alone make a profit. Back to the drawing board on that one !

neuralnet :: 18 Oct :: 2007 :: Comment / reply

Ha, the cheek of you complaining about an increase in royalties!

As I understand it the royalties are a percentage of your revenue, or possibly even of your profits so they ought to be affordable as things stand right now.

18 Oct :: 2007 :: Comment / reply

RE: Ha, the cheek of you complaining about an increase in royalties!

From what I read (and I did read a fair bit at the time!) it costs to run a station regardless of whether you made a profit or not. There was a company offering to deal with & pay the licencing to webcast, but their starter package was like £50 per month for 10 simultaneous streams, £90 for 20 streams.. Very steep ! Also extra for bandwidth, cos they expected only the equivalent of 20% of streams to be active all the time.

Things seem to have moved on a bit but apparently it's still pretty complex if you're not a registered company. According to that blog there's a very interesting line in the licencing agreement “Please note that in addition to MCPS and PRS licences, you will also require licences from the relevant record company or other copyright owner for the use of the sound recording", so what exactly is being licenced here ??!! I think you're also limited to 128kps cos they're scared of losing CD sales because of streamrippers..

If you have any interesting info, please post up the links !

neuralnet :: 20 Oct :: 2007 :: Comment / reply

My lot are a registered company

But your you're right, that does seem slightly bullshit that you have to pay the licensing fee and then not actually be licensed...

I still don't fully understand online radio, if you're paying 50 quid a month for 10 simultaneous streams, how is a radio station meant to pay for itself when it only has ten listeners?

I used to work with another only radio station and I always thought there may have been a bit of leeway let's say between the listener figures quoted in the marketing and the actual number of people who could be listening, knowing the technology.

I don't even listen to real radio much any more, I have all the music I want on my IPOD really.

20 Oct :: 2007 :: Comment / reply

RE: My lot are a registered company

"if you're paying 50 quid a month for 10 simultaneous streams, how is a radio station meant to pay for itself when it only has ten listeners?" aye, it can't.. Those are 'hobby' broadcaster rates offered by a third-party company. The only chance of making a profit is by increasing the numbers of listeners and negotiating a volume licence with the licencing companies yourself. If you find out the agreement that the site your working with has got, I'm v interested to find out more.

Nowadays people have more music than they can listen to! Ah well.