Rick's Blog - MTB Commentary
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The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) - the same panel of judges that set royalties
for internet radio stations that are "many times over what other music based
media pay" - has now granted satellite radio rates far less that that being
demanded from webcasters. What's up with that? What is the
rational for demanding "many times over" what all other media is forced to pay,
just because the music being heard is on the internet? A casual observer
might think organized and corporatized musicians (RIAA) want to shut down net
radio, like Music Tampa Bay. Go figure.
There was an appeal scheduled to begin in federal court in February ('08) to challenge this heavy bias against internet streamers compared to broadcast, satellite and cable. The process however is expected to continue well into the summer months, and likely beyond, before any kind of definitive outcome can be anticipated. The problem with all this is that the recording companies have a huge army of lawyers. Net Radio has 1. David Oxenburg is first class representation, and may indeed convince the judges that something is screwy here. Accu-Radio's Kurt Hanson and friends make great witnesses, and will certainly defend the interests of AOL, Live365, Yahoo, Rhapsody, and tens of thousands of smaller on-line streaming operations. Meanwhile, MTB waits in the shadows to see what the final verdict will be. In this interim, music by local unsigned and Indie artists has begun to emerge as a refreshing alternative to radio that plays the same old stuff. If and when the royalty issue is ever resolved, the present experiment may elect to remain detached from it all, and establish loyalties to the local unsigned and Indie music scene only. Wow, what a concept!
This project has been on-line for several years now, still with no significant audience (numbers will be monitored and reported later in this journal as events transpire), but showing signs of emerging into mainstream media of the future. Starting out as simply a desk-top companion, it can now be found in a continually expanding universe of streaming audio sources, including smart phones, pocket PCs, and even a whole new breed of radios being manufactured and marketed to the wireless internet community. Suddenly the future of internet radio (and TV) looks quite good, indeed. No wonder the royalty kings want to carve out as big a chunk as possible.
For the record, MTB origins go back a lot further than the internet. In fact, in terms of decades, it really got started more than 4 of them ago, in Montana. From there, a young radio DJ managed to somehow get hooked up with a radio ship sailing out of Miami, heading for the North Sea off the coast of England. After about a half year or so however, he was ready to return to the US and Florida, with the good fortune to become known as a Swingin' Gentleman on a Great Tampa Bay radio station. The rest, as they say, is history. So a broadcast background prompted early development of Music Tampa Bay. But as the practicality of acquiring an over-the-air station looms ever more out of reach, it turns out internet radio is emerging as a truly viable alternative, presenting what might readily be seen as an enormous challenge to traditional broadcast dominance. The wireless Internet in particular is beginning to show up everywhere. Local over-the-air radio is now but one very small fish in a large sea of instant and near universal electronic communications.
MTB was conceived as a prototype for an over-the-air broadcast station covering the Tampa Bay Area. Whether or not that ever transpires seems to now be of diminished significance in light of an emerging new media that is only beginning to become evident.
What was not considered at the outset was the adoption of existing streaming systems such as SHOUTcast by new media companies like Sprint and Nokia for starters. It is a safe bet, this and the 20 thousand or so other internet stations now streaming audio across the web can be picked up on quite a few different hand-held devices marketed by these companies. MTB capacity was limited from the start to a modest bandwidth hardwired to bulky desk top and lap top computers. But major phone companies making the streams accessible to pocket size mobile media is something else again. This represents something called Reach in broadcasting. MTB may yet have an infinitesimally small share of the local internet radio market - if there is such a thing - but its Reach is expanding exponentially.
So the belief that this project is worth the effort, and expense, continues to be manifest, as is the time spent upgrading play lists, adding new selections and managing an ever growing mp3 music library, developing new partnerships with musicians and others in the local music community, and keeping an eye on the exploding digital medium.
In a another development, the decision to pay royalties has been made, but not under RIAA CRB requirements. Local artists only, unsigned and/or independent will be paid directly by this website, using software and procedures that have not yet been written or developed. Initially it seems reasonable to assume a percentage of revenues model for establishing payments to artists, though of course as of the present juncture, there are no revenues, at least not coming in. It is probably not worth planning an actual funds distribution until a significant revenue stream has been established and royalties money accumulated. Much more will be said about this issue in the future.
In the meantime, work on this website continues, with modest progress in content, and functionality. As of March, 2008, music streaming has been on-line, with various periods of downtime, for 3 years. It was all shut down in September 2007 for personal reasons, but for the most part has been working with only a few minor glitches since then, and the prospects for being able to continue to do so looks good.
Now the question is, can it attract a sufficient audience to enable the establishment of an income. A profit motive has never been a consideration, but the need to find the means for permitting it to achieve some self-sustainability is. Audience size so far is almost non-existent. Server data indicate that daily listener-ship never exceeds just a few - perhaps a half dozen - people, for various lengths of time from just a few minutes, to sometimes several hours. It is presumed that most of these, if not all, are artists with whom direct contact has been made, and whose songs are being heard in the music stream. Of course, there has been almost no promotion, as this only requires further capital outlay against zero income. Expenses now run roughly a hundred bucks a month. It is simply not possible to continue to spend more on this untested hobby, without some plan for offsetting costs. In this regard, some kind of partnership might be worth developing, but with whom?
More on this also to follow later in this journal.
April '08
Went to Las Vegas this week to sit in on an internet radio forum, which by some coincidence was held in proximity and at the same time as the opening salvos of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in that city. Being a life-long broadcaster, both events were of some interest, but the forum was the reason for attending, and provided the most intriguing and inspiring content, at least as far as this project is concerned.
There are quite a few enthusiasts who see a huge future for streaming audio on the world wide web. Most of the most prominent voices in this chorus however differ in their approach from MTB by wide margins. They focus on nationally recognized artists under contract to large corporations marketed to a national and international audience. They also tend to provide multitudes of streams, with newer ones configured to allow users to play a large role in selecting content. Rhapsody, Paradise and AccuRadio seem to represent the dominant streamers, and command considerable revenue from subscribers and other sources. The modest approach that MTB employs almost gets lost in amid the grandiose schemes that are commanding the lion's share of attention in this field today.
Still, there is a prevailing feeling that local music by local musicians represents a departure from the type programming our friends at the NAB are offering, and establishing something new and unique seemed to fit the internet gang's projections about what is most likely to succeed in the new media. There was a nearly unanimous verdict of eminent doom for the same old - same old traditional style radio programming formula, though for somewhat different reasons than those behind the MTB model. Broadcast radio is still seen as the primary vehicle for airing the big hits, whether of the current century, or over the preceding 4 or 5 decades of the last. One theory that was presented to substantiate this, and offer some insight into where web-play fits into the picture depicts something called a Long Tail. This concept places most commercial music today at one end of the tail which is dominated by traditional, or "terrestrial" radio. The other end stretches out more or less indefinitely, with infinitely smaller portions of the music spectrum etched out in non-traditional formats that appeal to highly select, or "targeted" audiences. Imagine Russian Folk, African Kettle Drum, Irish Drinking, or Louisiana Coon Hunting music formats for example - not likely to generate enough revenue to pay the electric bill for a 50,000 FM covering large segments of New England. But on the internet, these select and narrowly defined - however eccentric - music formulas have a chance for survival. The rational for this is the world wide reach of the web.
Music Tampa Bay of course is not interested in spreading its magic out around the planet. This platform is intended to appeal only as far east as Lakeland, south to Sarasota or perhaps Port Charlotte & vicinity, north to New Port Richey, Hudson and Brooksville, and all points in between. Moreover, MTB refuses to be locked into one specific genre or what is so often called "type of music", but rather finds value and appeal in virtually anything that local talent can dream up. Of course there are points for production value, current visibility in the area in terms of appearances and recorded output, and other factors, that tend to give some songs greater appeal than others. In the final analysis however, there is little that our small group shares in common with the big guns in Las Vegas, who view the web as a giant money pool, with everyone ready to dive in.
More on this also likely to follow later.
The summer of '08 brings with it a new option for future development. A great deal has been written, reported, and rumored about major (and not so major) recording companies in the wake of big time declines in records sales. While a consumer revolution is taking place internet downloads and file swapping (whether legal or not), the new wave of musicians have discovered home brewing, software and resources that in many ways negate the necessity of signing long term promotional and recording contracts, at least in the view of some, obsolete.
A possible business model under consideration establishes a partnership with one or more Tampa Bay recording studios - and there are quite a few - and artists with decent home recordings to take their creative output to the next level, and provide CD design, production and distribution around the bay area. The MTB library already has at least a hundred such recordings that could remain essentially as is, except for basic enhancements that create a dynamic and more higly polished audio presentation. The end result would be music more equal in quality to some of the best commercial product heard on public airwaves, and sold in the national distribution networks dominated by corporate music business giants.
Many songs that are submitted to MTB for web-play consist of basic vocal and rhythm guitar accompanying, sometimes with simple rhythm tracks and modest additions, that are good quality recordings, but not necessarily what is known as studio quality. There is a need for development of these CD's and mp3 files into studio quality material - both to enhance the MTB sound, and elevate songwriters and musicians to the level enjoyed by acts under national contract with major producers. The possibility of initiating a mutual promotional agreement with a local studio, with or without separate label associations, is likely to be explored and reported on in this journal sometime before the summer is out.
Speaking of the end of summer, it looks like it may be necessary to also establish a new operating platform for MTB audio encoding operations utilizing dedicated server facilities, in addition to the current web hosting and remote servers now providing Shoutcast and Windows Media mp3 streaming. In September this year, like in 2007, MTB operations will be subject to what might be called off-shore monitoring, as your web master will be out of the country for at least a month or more. In fact, updating music rotation files and live local appearance calendar notices will be taking place from somewhere in France, Switzerland, Spain and or Italy, if not also the British Isles and The Netherlands. Last year the home based studio operations were simply shut down during similar travels in Canada. By moving the music library and media player / encoder operations to a dedicated server, MTB can continue to be maintained from virtually anywhere in the world (while still programming for a local audience, just the opposite of what most web-based streaming attempts to accomplish), without concern for the late summer storms that inevitably bring power outages and require hands on capability to maintain continuous 24/7 programming. The only problem with this is that it threatens to double over-head expenses that continue without any revenue generation whatsoever.
Speaking now after the end of summer, it can be said that the platform is now in place and functioning reasonably well, with some added audio enhancements. The format has tightened up by 2 seconds between each event, levels are consistent, and there is a residual reverb that was somehow has unintentionally been installed - probably having something to do with the audio compression software. The whole thing is like a laboratory experiment for an old radio hound with a piece of history already tucked away on line in Tampa Bay.
The ultimate question remains whether to incorporate to begin making a profit, or retain status as essentially an ever increasingly expensive hobby that provides nourishment for the ego of an aging AM radio rock jock (with a little FM country radio, and a whole lot of news also in the mix), now retiring from broadcasting after a career spanning more than 4 decades.
All this aside, the main forcus of MTB has been, is and will be the music and the musicians who make it possible. Some comments about the people who have come to be a part of this community would seem to be in order. It is hard to know where to begin, like with Lorna Bracewell and Rebekah Pulley. Both have appeared together, and in solo and full band separate shows together, and are mainstays in the streaming playlist.
Four Star Riot deserves mention, as does Soulfound, Charlie Souza, Boot, and a ton of artists who are also heard all the time. Two others in particular should get some notice, The Ditchflowers and Vodkanauts. These, together with Rebekah and the 4 **** Riot are all part of a fascinating musical feat at this journal entry, a show featuring the 4 groups to recreate the Beatle's White Album in commoration of the 40th anniversary of its release in 1968. An event like this should be live on this website, but the system is not yet quite ready to hit the road.
It is hard to name favorites from the library that makes up the sound of this radio station. Every participant is valued and integral to the impact the project may or may not have within the community. The musicians taking part in the White Album experiment however have stepped up to the next notch on the local musician richter scale. There is an historic feel about the event that will certainly reverberate over years to come.
The history of local music will also be read in footnotes to whatever diatribe follows the current path. That's part of the MTB mission, to be part of it.
Footnote to the Skipper's Beatle's Recreation, an appearance by MTB at the event was cut short by lack of available space and what was heard described as a minor crises from the size of the mob. The price of the tickets and raffle tickets are contributions to WMNF for what may have been the greatest show not seen.