Tag: internet radio
An Open Letter to Tampa Bay’s Pulse Radio
/Hello;
My intention was to send this to you through your contac and found out it was tong. This is business and not intended to offend
Take what I say here as 697 will:Each point is relayobely short… As I said, this was intended as email:
- TBPR is unknown in Tampa Bay. If things are too averse to operating an ONLINE station right now, shutting the PulseRadioTampaBay.com site and focusing on the media magazine would not be wrong.
- The FCC-license idea needs to be held off. Get online operations going again, and build a local reputation. Then consider an FCC license.
- It is HIGHLY recommended that TBPR explores LoneLonely Oak Radio for ideas on finance. I iss also highly recommended charging for submissions immediately cease. this site/station is unknown and not broadcasting… What are artists paying for? A potential Spotify playlistb spot? T That is wrong.
Social media involvement is a must. TBPR is uninvolved on Twitter. Following 13 accounts and rarely*posyomh has gotten the station 11 followers. That is not an agency or networking with other stations/media in Tampa Bay. Artists that TBPR picks up ship’d be followed – they may promote your Tweets, especially when you mention th4em.
All of this is written by a man on the outside. I don’t know staff of Tampa Bay’s {ulse Radio, or if this is a one-man show. Nor do I know personal challenges you face (mine arephsical; mind the typos). This is still a nnickel’s worth pf free advice.
Good Luck,
John Fontana
An Internet Radio Relic Wxists With WBPM NetRADIO
Net radio is common, major companies and independent hosts with varying ambitions are out there. They stream all you may like ifro, the audio soundsca[e… You just need to find the right one..
Many took a footing in recent years, and all too many fell apart and failed due to lack of popularity or real-life issues. Shit happens, we all know that.
Yet some little-known sites are out there, unseen, widely unknown, and have been for decades. Decades. They have thier niche and are content with it.
WBPM NetRADIO in Tampa is an example.
It was founded in 2004. It ,ay use a four-letter lead in its name but WBPM NetRADIO isn’t an FCC-licsense station (WBPM FM is up in New York) I, personally, remember things about the site because of my own long-time writing history and my friendship with prominent Tampa Bay bloggers with prominent status and social connections.
In fact, WBPM NetRADIO’s web site is quite nostalgic in its design: It’s arcane; old. Site security is high in (in an HTML-basics fashion of the 2000s) within ab old-school, frame-based lavout. Right-clicks don’t work, no text copyinght, and email contact links are encryptions… or was in response to a click.
With an older design, the site is still a step above all too many radio stations using the Wix platform.
UPDATE: I never noticed the displayed email at the bottom of the left menu. No response at this time.
It’s old. The music submission page tells a tale of malicious s 0agubmissions that forced WBPM NetRADIO to cease taking email submissions. Music must be mailed-in on CD.
They have their niche though. Something works as-is with an ancient site design, an off-site, third-party broadcast, and a complete absence from, social media. Yet the site’s copyright is fated as 2021. That’s likely a manually typed date and not a produced by a content-management program (with an update to come).
WBPM NetRADIO is still out there and humming along in one fashion or another in its 18th year.
It’s in need of an update and upgrades though. The internet and online music scene has vastly changed and always evolves. Yhose involved within it should do what they can to evolve with it.
A minor adaptation on-site can help: Be more direct. From page titles to stating music genres played, it helps people find what they are looking for. I say “music genres” because WBPM NetRADIO says they play a variety of music on their submission page, yet I only heard pop/dance music when I listened. Oh, if MixCloud isn’t truly the station feed (if there is one at all) a “listen live” link pointing to the station’s feed would be beneficial.
In the end, an older general Internet radio station that calls Tampa home is (still) out the. I have no clue if these words will entice curiosity and site visits or lead to a much-need site evolvement from WBPM NetRADIO… They’re content in their as-os rhythe, or there would have been a change in beat long ago.
The story of two Internet Radio streaming services
Internet radio… I don’t even know if that’s truly the proper title to use for this. It’s audio streaming of music and perhaps there is advertising but it’s not like traditional radio. Certainly not when you take in the aspect that computers and choices (by the listener and the software programming) are in control of the broadcasting and what’s airing and such. Oh, that is still a truth in traditional radio airplay, but disc jockeys and local advertising isn’t as ardent a factor. No, you’re the disc jockey ultimately and advertising is a different beast online. But I digress, this isn’t about ads.
I’ve been using Pandora casually for a few years. I know its power and influence… So it was a chance I took trying to help prop up the local garage rock/pop band that I’ve been helping out since summer of this year, the Pretty Voices. As someone who has worked in the distant, distant past for search engine submissions when they were a slower process, I thought the challenge of Pandora was a throwback. It was also intimidating.
Pandora has standards and a large audience. They’re not going to just take random submissions / they’re going to have standards that need to be reached and exceeded, applying to both the music and the actual submission form process. My first effort to get the band on the services proved quality mattered. The submission song (Scenius Genius, a rocker with foul language) and submission form came up short in the eyes of Pandora. Disappointing? Sure, but not a total surprise. It had taken a full week of review on their part and that could have been inspired by internal debate to go along with competition from other potential artists submitting new content to the network, but it still came up short. Close, though. Much closer than I realized.
It took me a second submission only a few days later, using another song as an example (Crackle Pop) and an elaboration on the form regarding the band itself and details on the song example used in the submission to get the accepted status. Yes, Pandora accepted the Pretty Voices and that was three days after that second submission! The album, Jangular, by the band went live on Pandora on October 4th and you can find it here. Quite the accomplishment for the group and a feat for the submitter!
This process seems a hell of a lot more complex-yet-involved than the one utilized by Jango and its formal audio administration area, Radio Airplay.
Simple enough, Radio Airplay lets musicians upload music to the network, but you have to have a paying membership; a monthly fee. While that comes off like an immediate downside the fact that it airs audio to international locations (Canada, Europe, the Russian Federation, Asia, etc) makes up for it. Limits on exposure do exist though; if you’re not paying the top level monthly fees, you only have so many credits per month to expose listeners to your music, and top ranked songs earn more credits from the network. This is another flaw of the system, but not such a big flaw as its weekly “top songs” list.
In concept, it’s a simple standard that’s known in the music industry: The song that was most well liked in major musical genres such as rock, metal, alternative, country, pop, dance, rhythm and blues (R&B), etc. All the songs get ranked by the listeners on Jango and it reflects music popularity… You can’t go wrong with having a top-ranked song list, can you?
In this case, yes…. Yes you can.
I’m not sure if it’s just the change of the music world or what, but I’m pretty sure there’s something going on when an instrumental, mid-tempo song is ranked top “Rock” song for a week, especially when it lacks guitar music. Case in point: Week 39 on Radio Airplay had an instrumental named Martha’s Vinyard as the top ranked “Rock” song.
You cannot tell me that’s rock. And my venting here isn’t just over the fact this is a mislabeled genre but also the fact this guy routinely gets ranked tops for his instrumentals in rock or pop. That and the weekly top list isn’t top songs by genre as-so-much singular songs that are weekly best per genre. Here’s the top list for Week 39 (where Martha’s Vinyard was ranked top Rocker)..
Weekly with these top ranked songs, you’ll find genre defying music as the top ranked numbers from Jango/Radio Airplay. It gets ridiculous. Fan reaction to music is one thing, wrongly categorization is another, but mismanagement from the host company to the point it allows this to go on and on and on tops it all.
