Programming Services

[JimmyJames]

I'm curious about something.

If there were a noncommercial service that provided hand-curated plavlists of a Triple A or College Alternative nature that your college station could take in any non-DJ slot, overnight or during breaks, would this be of any interest? What would you see as the pros and cons?

 

[aaronread]

Depends a little on various factors, but yeah, I could be interested in such a thing.

That said, college radio stations are notorious about refusing to air programming from "outside sources". The ego trip demands that all programming must be done in-house. At one point back in 2001, I remember a student GM confidently telling me that he was convinced the station's listeners preferred hearing dead air than hearing automated programming. Fortunately, I think times have changed somewhat in the nine years since, and today's college radio kids are more media-savvy than ever. But the ego is definitely still there; they'd probably be more interested in ripping a bunch of CD's and playing music locally.

Speaking purely from a technical standpoint, this sort of service is likely to be doomed because of the cost/benefit analysis. The internet is too unreliable a transport medium for a live program stream, and the only land-based means that ARE reliable enough (like T-1's and ISDN) are way too expensive for a widespread distribution model. So you're stuck with satellite, which is expensive and requires a non-inconsequential amount of engineering to install and maintain...especially for college radio stations that frequently operate on a zero-budget engineering system. Now, couple that with the limited earning power of most college radio outlets, and you're in a tough situation where the station can't afford to pay much out-of-pocket for such a service, and you can't hope to earn enough to justify it by selling underwriting because your feed will be on so irregularly.

Because our college radio station is co-located with the college NPR station, we have easy access to satellite downlinks and generally we have really good equipment; but for "college radio" we're the exception, not the rule.

 

[Dancerev889]

I'm curious about something.

If there were a noncommercial service that provided hand-curated plavlists of a Triple A or College Alternative nature that your college station could take in any non-DJ slot, overnight or during breaks, would this be of any interest? What would you see as the pros and cons?

Why not just automate the station and let your student DJ's or yourself design some creative programming. Let your students learn how to voice track. Just a thought

 

[butlerguy03]

Doesn't WXPN (Philly) already do this through the NPR network?

 

[aaronread]

WXPN produces "XPoNential Radio", which is (AFAIK) basically the same style of music you hear on NPR's/WXPN's World Cafe just done 24/7 and with no interviews or DJ's. However, the feed cannot be transmitted on anything but HD-n multicast channels due to the strategic deal WXPN has with NPR and the PRSS (Public Radio Satellite System) that distributes it to stations.

Even if a college station could get the satellite feed and had an HD Radio transmitter with multicast ability, they'd still have to have the rights to broadcast NPR programming. Non-NPR stations CAN get those rights, but it can be complicated and difficult if there's already NPR member stations in the same area. Not to mention expensive.

FWIW, there's a five-hour show called Undercurrents that plays a lot of XPoNential-like music. It's available through the PRSS but there must be a low-cost alternative means of getting it because I know a couple of the LPFM's that are listed as affiliates and I don't think they have satellite delivery or a lot of money to pay for syndicated programming.

 

[butlerguy03]

WXPN produces "XPoNential Radio", which is (AFAIK) basically the same style of music you hear on NPR's/WXPN's World Cafe just done 24/7 and with no interviews or DJ's. However, the feed cannot be transmitted on anything but HD-n multicast channels due to the strategic deal WXPN has with NPR and the PRSS (Public Radio Satellite System) that distributes it to stations.

Even if a college station could get the satellite feed and had an HD Radio transmitter with multicast ability, they'd still have to have the rights to broadcast NPR programming. Non-NPR stations CAN get those rights, but it can be complicated and difficult if there's already NPR member stations in the same area. Not to mention expensive.

FWIW, there's a five-hour show called Undercurrents that plays a lot of XPoNential-like music. It's available through the PRSS but there must be a low-cost alternative means of getting it because I know a couple of the LPFM's that are listed as affiliates and I don't think they have satellite delivery or a lot of money to pay for syndicated programming.

Seems like they could make some money allowing it to go Analog/HD-1. Undercurrents is a good program, add that to a long list of blog-type shows and interview shows like Acoustic Cafe, Putumayo World Music Hour and many others...you could easily get a nice programed station. Also, you can't be a indie-AAA without checking out TripleARadio.com and becoming a member of CMJ, joining PlayMPE and DMDS and I think the other one that has a ton of AAA content is ArtistsDirect. Once you do that, discs and digital files will flood in.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

I tend to agree with the prevailing opinion: it would be very difficult to get traction on this.

First, I'm of the opinion that "college rock" is on the decline, in favor of more traditional pubradio programming.

Second, every college station that I've been in in the last few years has an automation system which is capable of spinning the hits unattended. Not every station takes advantage of it, but its there.

From the station GM point of view, why would I pay several thousand $$$ a year with satellite music when I can brew my own for a few hundred dollars once.

 

[aaronread]

From the station GM point of view, why would I pay several thousand $$$ a year with satellite music when I can brew my own for a few hundred dollars once?

To play devil's advocate here: because the piper always gets paid. You can cheap out on the automation by using a consumer desktop computer and relying on students to sit there and rip new music in. But there's always a cost. Either in:

• Higher rate of downtime due to consumer equipment's higher rate of failure...
• Higher rate of downtime due to unreliable volunteer help ripping...
• Less music diversity because it takes far longer than anyone ever thinks it does to rip the necessary 500+ CD's you'll need to avoid repeats...
• Lousy sounding audio because it takes a lot of time to properly set the InQ/OutQ points for each track...

...or any one of a dozen other things. Properly-done automation takes from 2 to 6 man-hours PER DAY to sound at least halfway decent, depending on your station's particular setup and needs. That's a lot of effort, and if you assign a dollar value to that effort (which for most commercials you're rather legally obligated to) then suddenly paying a few thousand per year for a satellite service that sounds perfect and requires near-zero ongoing man-hour work? That starts looking very attractive to the balancesheet.

 

[aaronread]

Why not just automate the station and let your student DJ's or yourself design some creative programming. Let your students learn how to voice track. Just a thought

Where to begin? Okay, so you're assuming that:

• College students automatically know more about what makes a good radio playlist than a professional. This MAY be true, but in my experience it's a total crapshoot.
• Even if they have the music-picking talent, you're assuming unpaid/underpaid students will have the time and devotion to consistently put in the hours necessary to learn how to voicetrack properly.
• ...and then put in the hours necessary to actually DO the voicetracking on an ongoing basis.
• And finally, that you'll have enough said students to fill a 24/7/365 schedule both now and in the future, given the incredible turnover rate inherent to student employees.

That last one is the killer. College radio has nowhere near the grip on the average college student that it did 40 or even 20 years ago. Kids are used to growing up with Youtube, iPods, Netflix, TiVo, Hulu and the like. Most kids I know in radio now think of it as "retro cool", not as cutting edge. Most of my students at my station go on the air because they are "broadcasting" to their friends and family more than anyone else. It's an ego trip, and it often makes for questionable radio but I have the luxury of making our LPFM station be more like a student activity than a radio station because we have an NPR outlet running in the same building. We let the kids have fun on the LPFM and anyone who wants to be serious about a radio career gets do stuff on the NPR outlet.

Mind you, I don't just let the inmates run the asylum at our LPFM. We do a ton of campus and local sports, we try to do as many local broadcasts of live events, we run a Spanish-language service in the mornings, and we work with the local Arts Council extensively. Typically *I* handle most of that, although again - the students that demonstrate they're serious and are skilled enough are given as much responsibility as they want in that regard. But I make sure there's plenty of airshifts for the students that just wanna have fun on the air. So far it's working well...we used to have maybe 30 students a semester but now we're averaging closer to 50. That's not bad for a campus of 2000, and considering the LPFM's only 2.5 years "old" (in its current form).

Don't get me wrong...I'm not dissing college radio. But it drives me bonkers when people assume that because so many professionals in commercial radio have done such a lousy job, that it automatically means that students must be better.

 

[Dancerev889]

Why not just automate the station and let your student DJ's or yourself design some creative programming. Let your students learn how to voice track. Just a thought

Where to begin? Okay, so you're assuming that:

• College students automatically know more about what makes a good radio playlist than a professional. This MAY be true, but in my experience it's a total crapshoot.
• Even if they have the music-picking talent, you're assuming unpaid/underpaid students will have the time and devotion to consistently put in the hours necessary to learn how to voicetrack properly.
• ...and then put in the hours necessary to actually DO the voicetracking on an ongoing basis.
• And finally, that you'll have enough said students to fill a 24/7/365 schedule both now and in the future, given the incredible turnover rate inherent to student employees.

That last one is the killer. College radio has nowhere near the grip on the average college student that it did 40 or even 20 years ago. Kids are used to growing up with Youtube, iPods, Netflix, TiVo, Hulu and the like. Most kids I know in radio now think of it as "retro cool", not as cutting edge. Most of my students at my station go on the air because they are "broadcasting" to their friends and family more than anyone else. It's an ego trip, and it often makes for questionable radio but I have the luxury of making our LPFM station be more like a student activity than a radio station because we have an NPR outlet running in the same building. We let the kids have fun on the LPFM and anyone who wants to be serious about a radio career gets do stuff on the NPR outlet.

Mind you, I don't just let the inmates run the asylum at our LPFM. We do a ton of campus and local sports, we try to do as many local broadcasts of live events, we run a Spanish-language service in the mornings, and we work with the local Arts Council extensively. Typically *I* handle most of that, although again - the students that demonstrate they're serious and are skilled enough are given as much responsibility as they want in that regard. But I make sure there's plenty of airshifts for the students that just wanna have fun on the air. So far it's working well...we used to have maybe 30 students a semester but now we're averaging closer to 50. That's not bad for a campus of 2000, and considering the LPFM's only 2.5 years "old" (in its current form).

Don't get me wrong...I'm not dissing college radio. But it drives me bonkers when people assume that because so many professionals in commercial radio have done such a lousy job, that it automatically means that students must be better.

I never said let students completely create programming. Thats the job of the station manager. If you work hand in hand you will have a great programming lineup. I disagree with you that it takes 4 to 6 hours a day to get the automation to sound great. It may take you some time in the beginning, but once you have things set it changing little things on a regular basis that will make it run great. In this day and age voice tracking is not very hard. If they can do an air shift then it will take them little time to learn how to do voice tracking