Via a link from the Radio World newsletter I was reading an article entitled "Online-only radio stations offer a distinct freedom of expression", and there was one line that really jumped out at me:
"..Traditional, or terrestrial, radio stations pay royalties to songwriters only, but online stations pay songwriters, artists and labels..."
I am guessing this must be common knowledge to most of you? but I never realized this.
Online Radio Stations Offer Freedom (Greenville Online)
What motivates someone to start an Internet radio station? The answer can vary.
That is true only as it relates to the terrestrial signal. The radio station's stream pays royalties also to the performer.
Very true, and a heap of a lot cheaper.
This is something that has been kept from John Q public for quite some time. Online stations play almost triple what terrestrial radio pays for over the air royalties. It is far from being fair in fact it should be illegal to demand that small webcasters pay triple what commercial broadcasters pay we need to petition hard to get the stopped. Otherwise the only radio stations allowed both on the internet or terrestrial will be corporate and that truly in my definition is a monopoly.
Again, remember a streamer has the whole WORLD as potential audience. Terrestrial has only as far as their signal reaches. A streamer with a setup in his basement or a commercial broadcaster streaming has the same potential audience online, and that's the WORLD.
Case in point. I've mentioned them before. WREN in Topeka, KS is a streaming only station. Started by a bunch of old fart DJ's who wanted to bring back the over the air WREN from years ago only to find out doing so would have cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars. So they started a streaming only station with a free computer given to one of the guys. Now, 4 years later they have 200,000 streaming listeners monthly and are the number one station in NE Kansas. They show up in the Arbitrons, and beat all the corporate stations in the ratings. The have a full staff of DJ's and sales people, and a studio/office in the NOTO arts district.
So, yes, a guy with a computer can stream to the world. I'd say 200,000+ listeners a month would make any of us pretty happy. These guys did it.
TIB
The problem with the royalty rates as they are is that you really don't know who is connecting to your stream, and if they're a real listener or just a robot.
I get over 100 listener connections a day on my IceCast server when its running, but there are certainly real listeners, but many last only a few seconds. Plus at one time I was getting spammed by some servers out of Europe that are known for this kind of activity - before I blocked that set of IP addresses, I had over 20,000 listener connections.
That would be expensive.