Internet radio - if we play instrumental/vocal will they listen?

[CMB]

Classical Music broadcasting has always had a love/hate relationship with vocal music.
The outsiders to our art form (the majority of classical listeners) love the vocal pieces they recognize (Nessun dorma, Largo al factotum) and run scared from everything else,
/especially if its opera/
sigh....

With ClassicalMusicBroadcast.com, I have the opportunity to play just about anything we want - Billy Budd? Check. Taming of the Shrew in German? Check. 12th century anitphonal chant? Got it! But the 9-to-5 ers seem to louse it up every time.

Stations live and die by the people who listen, and the bulk of the listeners come from the office world, the folks who put on "soothing background noise" from 9to5 and shut off the station IMMEDIATELY if any vocal music rears its first opening bars.

So I suffer, and I ask listeners to make suggestions, and I pull my hair out in a frenzy - what DO listeners want?

Have at it, folks, because I don't know what to do. The man in charge has *highly* recommended making Sunday primarily a vocal music day and cutting it entirely during the week, except for the occasional drop-in here and there.

BIG sigh...

[Krummhorn]

Well, pooh on the 9 to 5'ers anyway ... ... just kidding !!

I like a general pot-pouri of classical. It's great to mix it all up - there's plenty of 'elevator music' for soothing background stuff, imho

[Krummhorn]

CMB, (et al)

What kind of impact will the new proposed law changes have on your internet radio broadcasts?

[CMB]

Disaster in big capital letters, truth be told...right now we are averaging $700/month in bandwidth costs, and that is at reduced hours.

If the bill passes, it will add another few thousand in "performance royalties". The station is killing me monetarily as it is, and I very likely will have to shut it down for the time being anyway, as much as I hate doing that.

I tried doing click ads and CPM ads, but listeners refused to click on them, even when I asked very politely. I guess asking people who listen for free 8 hours a day to give me one minute of their time to visit advertisers is asking for too much.

[zlya]

Sorry, bit out of the loop here. What new proposed law?

[Krummhorn]

Hi Zlya,

Here's a link via Google News that explains what is happening with internet radio.

[zlya]

Ok. Let me see if I understand this (sorry, I'm a bit dim sometimes). Right now, there's free internet radio. I could go to the site and listen to music for free, but the webcasters have to pay royalties. What I don't understand is how do the webcasters make money? Are there paid advertisements, like normal radio? Is it all banner adds and pay-per-click?

I guess I also don't really understand how internet radio is different from normal radio, or why. It doesn't seem fair for you to be treated differently. I mean, if they don't have to pay these extras royalties, why should you?

As for vocal music vs. instrumental, I can understand the 9to5ers. I find it very hard to concentrate when I'm listening to vocal music--even when it's in another language. Come to that, I find it hard to concentrate when I'm listening to ANY music; I never really understood the concept of background music. Still, I think vocal music is more distracting than most, so if people are listening while working, I can see why they might prefer instrumental music.