Internet Radio —
The Sound of the Future

Although Internet radio was birthed soon after the Net itself, only now is the general population starting to tune into the format. Which is a mysterious thing, given I-radio's stupendous potential as a global interface between broadcaster/sound creator and listener/ sound connoisseur.

Turn on

Unless you have just beamed down from orbit, you will have noticed significant changes in the way modern citizens source their music. An exploding number of punters are now purchasing on-line at sites operated by the likes of corporate pioneer Apple or, more recently, the ever-greedy Microsoft. This shift has left formerly muscular industry giants, such as Tower Records for one, gurgling in bathtubs of red ink.

However, music download sites are just one component of the broadband-audio media platform generated by this precipitous turn-around. The other rapidly emerging star is, of course, Internet radio. The title Internet 'radio' is actually something of a misnomer though, as this format rarely manifests itself as radio in the traditional sense. (See side bar.)

I-radio is, in fact, way better, as with only relatively basic software virtually anyone can 'broadcast' virtually anything to an audience virtually anywhere on the planet. This connectivity likewise makes the medium an unprecedented sourcing tool for info, music and entertainment. You can now listen to top London DJs straight from the turntable, or the news the commercial services shy from ... or whatever you fancy — if in doubt, check out www.bondageradio.com.

In its purest form, Net radio is totally indie DIY, yet, as many stations are already prov-ing, the format can also provide a high-band-width revenue stream. This simple fact that there is cash to be made will alone be enough to secure Internet radio's future as the next evolutionary step in audio broadcasting.

Tune In

To access the world wide web of I-radio, the first thing you are obviously going to need is an Internet hook-up — preferably broadband, although many stations also offer a low-bit feed. The second requirement is a reception device, such as a computer or possibly one of the Internet-compatible stereos already available. The last essential is a small piece of software called a media player.
This multi-purpose program allows you to listen to music, watch videos, play games, and, yes, stream Net radio — and also Net TV, but that's a whole other thing. Although OSs generally include their own player, there are better freeware options available. The dominant programs are Winamp and Sonique (Win), RealPlayer (Win/Mac), iTunes and Audion (Mac).

If you are new to I-radio, and a Windows user, Winamp provides an excellent diving board. Apart from being highly featured,
user-friendly and ad-free, Winamp's main advantage is that it gives you direct in-program access to the SHOUTcast station network. Although the many thousands of broadcasters on this network can be accessed individually using any MP3 player, Winamp eliminates the pain of trolling the Net looking for station links.

Another bonus of Winamp is that it comes with a huge number of functionality-adding plug-ins. Probably the most desirable of these are StreamRipper and StationRipper, available from Download.com, which allow you to record any tracks in an audio stream as sound files. These files can later be burnt to CD or DVD or loaded to a mobile player such as iPod. FREE AUDIO!

These recording programs are completely legal, but respect the rights of artists, and use the software for research purposes only. Many broadcasters tag tracks with links that will connect you directly to info on the artists. If you like their work, buy it so they can eat and live indoors and produce more.

Beam out

Essentially, if you have the strength to click the icon for a station's live feed, you can listen to Internet radio. But how easy is it to become a broadcaster, and maybe even a financially successful one? The answers to these questions can be found close by — in fact, in Tokyo, the terrestrial home of Net station samurai.fm.

Samurai.fm: Words with the founders

Samurai.fm was set up by Matt Cheetham and Hasham Ahmad in May 2003 with the aspiration of supporting the local electronic music scene. As well as providing a quality feed and content-rich Website, Matt and Hash have managed to reach across the cyber-void with a series of successful live club events.

Kansai Scene: What originally motivated you to start samurai.fm?
Matt and Hash: The station came about because both of us found ourselves in Japan surrounded by artists who had no easy way to promote themselves, either domestically or internationally. Being from the UK, we were familiar with quality Internet radio stations and saw this as the ideal medium.

KS: How easy was it to get on and then stay on air?
M&H: The hardest part was collecting the music — for the first six months, there were 24 hours of new DJ-mixed shows in rotation each week. However, in January 2004, we automated the station technology to free up time. The startup costs were only 40 or 50,000 yen, as we did basically all the work ourselves. Over time the station has slowly expanded, but the running costs are still extremely low at around 20 to 30,000 yen a month.

KS: What are the technical requirements to broadcast?
M&H: We started with a Live365 service but quickly found it too limiting and switched to a server network leased from a hosting company. We now use the Real Audio format, but each streaming technology has its own pros and cons. We are exploring live streaming, but it doesn't really seem to offer that much over pre-recorded streaming. Our 'live' stream is actually a random playback of the last 24 shows.

KS: What kind of reaction have you had since your launch?
M&H: We have had great support from artists, clubs and listeners all over the world. The biggest audience is in Japan and the feedback is always great — we get a lot of e-mails. In November we had 90,000 listeners (based on server logs) and well over 600,000 page views. Many people are also buying our station T-shirts.

KS: What kind of future do you anticipate for the station?
M&H: The first step is to become financially secure and then to expand, including channelisation into different genres and video streaming. We are also building the capability to serve content to other Websites, and assessing live broadcasting as well as mediums such as cable and mobile. Independent Internet radio is as yet unproven in a business sense, but we hope to show that samurai.fm can grow into a successful media channel.

Text: Kym Hutcheon