A studio set up with microphone

Internet Radio - All-day play

This is the first article in a series of articles I am writing about Internet Radio.

Internet radio is one of my passions in life. I think people need passions, they need something they can turn to and disappear into, away from the stresses of life. Running, and producing a show on an internet radio station is my passion.

I thought I would start writing articles about Internet Radio, how it works, how to set it up, certain aspects of producing a successful show and so on. For a bit of background, I produced with my co-host Dan a very successful internet radio show called The Ear Worm Show for about 5 years. We were on the air every Thursday from 7 till 10 racking in listeners from as far afield as Canada.

I'm a software engineer by trade and a former sound engineer from back in the 'day' (that's what people say right?), so the bits that most internet radio producers out there struggle with [setting up a website: SHOUTcast server: making a studio], come easy to me, the parts I struggle on often come easy to others though, like how to advertise, how to draw in interest, creating posters and non-1990's looking pictures (that was where Dan excelled and I certainly did not!). Something though I did learn a lot about was licencing. In the early part of our radio career, we often came to blows with the likes of PRS and PPL and their strange licencing schemes, but ultimately got along with them, after all the job they do is delivering revenue to the creators of songs we all play and love on the radio.

Performing Rights Society - Phono-something something (can never remember the other one).

PRS and PPL are essentially private companies (despite what they tell you they are not government-approved, run or indeed affiliated) who's job it is to collect royalties on behalf of the artists, and record companies of the music you wish to play. Because internet radio falls into the category of public performance, in order to fulfil the requirements of the Copyright and Patent act and obtain the permission of the artists to play their music on your radio station, PRS/PPL licence their music under a blanket licence called an LOML or Limited Online Media Licence. What does this mean for the internet radio station? Two things, which are very related to each other:

  1. Cost. A yearly cost to obtain both such licences, which is all dependent on your level of commitment and in some aspects your level of drive to succeed.
  2. Peace of mind. Knowing that because you have invested money into these licences you can rest easy that no one is going to be sending you a summons for court.

Although this probably deserves its own article, I mention PRS and PPL because of there relevance to all-day play. What is all day play I now hear you asking reader? Something in radio called dead air (silence, lack of anything, just nothing) is to be avoided, I mean no one wants to connect to your station and spend 5 minutes wondering if their internet is broken or if you simply aren't playing anything. To combat dead air, stations often have all-day play, an automated system which plays pre-defined tracks in order, sometimes with jingles and slogan between tracks, letting the listeners know what station they are on. This is basically to fill the space between live shows, which sounds like a good idea right? Yes, but it comes at a cost(literally).

To understand the cost implication of all-day play, first head over to PRS's licencing info sheet and take a look at the licencing bands. (https://www.prsformusic.com/-/media/files/prs-for-music/licensing/online-licensing/limited-online-music-licence-guide-2020.pd) you will also need to go here (https://www.prsformusic.com/licences/using-music-online/limited-online-music-licence) to see how they calculate the number of streams.

So let's say you have a station that runs 1 live show a week (50 days a year) and no all-day play, in which it plays roughly 20 tracks per show, and each show lasts for 2 hours. These shows run throughout the year. After some initial data collection, you establish that you have an average of 10 listeners per show (that's per day). The calculation to work out which band you are in is:

10 (listeners per day) * 20 (10 listeners * 2 hours - 20 listening hours) * 10 (20 songs over 2 hours = 1 hr 10 songs) * 50(days of broadcasting a year). So that's 10 *20*10*50= 100'000 streams a year. That's band B, so that's £290 please, and whatever PPL are going to charge. That's a lot of money for a single 2-hour show running all year. That is how PRS calculate how many streams you have.

If like me, you are a clever boy, you can probably code something up to monitor the exact figure which in reality is going to be a lot lower. Very few internet radio stations are actually in BAND A, yet most of them pay for band A, and most of these stations use all day-play. That's 24 hours a day playing music. So let's run that calculation again, this time having an average of 3-minute tracks over 24 hours is 480, we'll cut it down to 400 (16 per hour) allowing for jingles and other things, and let's reduce the average listeners per day to just 5 making it 120 hour listening time to make life easy. So the calculation is :

5 * 120* 16 * 365 = 3'504'000

That is band E (it's actually above band E) - Which is £1'448

That would often include a live show during the day which is what would throw the average listeners up to 5 per day (this is average here so spread throughout the day)

Confused yet? I was when I actually sat down and looked at the maths. In doing my research I found that in 90% of cases all day play isn't actually listened to by anyone, its the live shows that draw the crowds, this information was taken from my stats project which collects how many connected listeners are on a stream on a minute by minute basis, there is another article about my stats project coming soon.

In short, most radio stations buy a BAND A because its the cheapest, and then put on licensable music 24-7, usually to no listeners at all. I know logic would dictate if there are no listeners, it shouldn't count, but let me ask you this: If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it, has the tree actually fallen down? By virtue of the fact, you have actually played the track in a public performance regardless of the lack of audience PRS still considers this a performance. So is all-day play really worth it? My answer is no, it's not, for the cost of playing constant tracks simply to combat dead-air and the effort it takes to create regular, dynamic playlists which will keep people engaged, it's not worth it, as in most cases all-day play doesn't have a very large listener base (if any), and the lack of a live DJ doesn't build engagement to the station.

What's my alternatives?

There are several alternatives to stop dead-air, first and foremost building an audience based on a live show is much better than building an audience based on a playlist, unless you want to start competing with Spotify? all-day play should only ever be there to inform listeners of schedule, station and provide a holding channel so they know their radio player or internet hasn't frozen. Building good live shows, with audience involvement will build your radio station, and in turn allow you to put on more live shows, the goal being that all-day play should never be used because you are constantly delivering content via live shows to an engaged audience. However that said, you are still going to need to use some kind of all-day play for those times that a live show isn't on. Here's a quick guide to put together something that you don't need to include in your PRS licencing band calculation.

  1. Regularly play jingles, soundbites and even funny quotes from DJ's
  2. Showcase shows - Showcase live shows, if someone tunes in early to a live show, it's an opportunity to inform them what else the station provides. Do this with short extracts, funny or informative parts and the best of a show with a clear and memorable announcement of day and time the show is on. You never know it might entice them to listen to that show as well.
  3. You can't play constant jingles and showcases. Try and find some licence free or royalty-free music, now this does NOT mean music you would play in an elevator, there are some very good resources out there, which are licence free and hence PRS and PPL need not get involved. Playing these between jingles/showcasing is a good idea. You'll still need a PRS/PPL licence however for your live shows, so don't forget that part.
  4. If your station's income is supplemented by advertising or sponsors, use all-day play as a platform to push this, (as well as your live shows) but be careful not to do it during times of known zero-listeners. This will not make you friends with your advertising partners. Instead target times before and after live shows, so you know there is a chance to catch listeners before they tune out.

If there is one thing you can take away from this article is that no one really listens to all-day play, compared to live shows. If you are going to contact me saying I'm wrong and that your station is exclusively all-day play and has X amount of listeners, before doing that here is an experiment I want you to try. Put on some live shows, in which try and engage the audience as much as you can, and play the music they want as well as your own tastes, then look at who has the more listeners? I will bet my hat (it's not worth much) that the live show wins. Lets also not forget the cost implications of performing all-day play 24/7 with licensable music. As an example try and look at some of the larger online radio stations (https://oe3.orf.at/player - oe3 hit radio)(https://www.lemillindia.com/the-best-internet-radio-stations-to-stream-now/), and note they have phased out all-day play.