BikerBar Radio is in OnMagazine's
October 2001 Edition
(available in paper at your newstands now or online)
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Radio Days
The Internet is crackling with the sounds and the passions of amateur radio enthusiasts. Here's how to join the crowd or just tune in online
ALEC FOEGE, a freelance writer, is working on a book about the online music revolution.
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Better yet, you don't need to be a genius to use it. Armed with a 28.8K or faster modem, an online connection and a free, downloadable player for streaming audio — RealPlayer or Winamp, to name just two — anyone can tune into De Mori's station or any of the tens of thousands of others currently online. And almost as easily, you can turn the tables and try streaming your own music, talk show or sportscast by signing up with a free Internet-radio service provider like Live365.com or Shoutcast.
While traditional broadcast radio languishes in Top 40 purgatory — the same old stations playing the same old stuff (apologies to 'N Sync fans) — and total time spent listening over the last decade has declined, Internet radio serves up astonishing variety. Listeners can move from motorcycle-theme tunes from Michigan to opera with a twist to Voice of Russia, a state radio station that's available in English and other languages. "Internet radio is especially cool if you can imagine all of these people all over America in their offices listening to their own music channel," says Eric Wolfram, a computer consultant in San Francisco who regularly tunes into Village Voice Radio for a quick hit of the New York City alternative weekly newspaper.
Most regular radio stations are also getting in on the act by posting simulcast streams of broadcasts on their websites, providing an easy way for you to listen to your favorite midday show while you're at work. "For a while, there was the notion that some guy in his garage in Erie, Pa., was going to suddenly start a station that would suck away your listeners," says Chuck Singleton, program director at WFUV-FM, a public radio station in New York City revered for its eclectic music roster. "A year later, most of the top Internet radio stations are traditional radio stations." Internet radio hubs like SonicNet.com, Spinner; owned by ON's parent, AOL TIME WARNER) and, for Mac users, iTunes, offer a virtual smorgasbord of preprogrammed music channels organized by taste and genre. To make access even easier, many new computers have radio software bundled in. No matter what method of finding tunes you use, there is something out there for every listener. "Internet radio is about being able to listen to something that's really specific to your needs," says Eric Rhoads, publisher of Radio Ink magazine.
If you don't know what you're looking for, it's best to start from a hub site such as Listen.com or Radio-Locator and punch in any genre or location. Judging from a recent list of the most popular webcasts as compiled by Arbitron, the public's taste is pretty eclectic. Top stations include the Web-only Beethoven.com and WABCradio.com, the online version of a popular New York City talk station. But some of the more intriguing broadcasts are amateur ones, most of which probably wouldn't have existed before the Internet.
Coverunner Radio, for instance, specializes in surf and beach-theme tunes. It is run by audio technician Noel Diotte, 49, from his 34-ft.-long Catalina sloop, Shearwater, which is moored in Redondo Beach, Calif. "My station is kind of an armchair dream factory for people who think about being out on the ocean," says Diotte, who lives on the boat with his wife, Diane, and their golden retriever, Holli.
Starting the station was easier than he could possibly have imagined. About 18 months ago, with no prior experience as a DJ, Diotte ripped out a U-shaped banquette and table from the starboard side of his boat and replaced them with a teak-accented console stocked with spare audio components (nice, but by no means a requirement). Before long, he was recording a show that interweaves recordings by well-known performers like Joan Baez and Bob Marley with interviews and music from "local songwriters or sailors or both," he says.
With little more than his desktop PC and a phone line strung from land, Diotte now regularly uploads recordings of his show and features them on his website. Though he usually has only 5 or 10 listeners at a time, he has received fan e-mail about his station from places as far away as Sweden. "My next dream," says Diotte, "is to sit there with a wind generator, big banks of batteries on the boat, and broadcast live from Catalina Island or anywhere that the signal can be transmitted from."
Diotte's wish doesn't seem so outlandish in the fast-growing, anything-goes universe of Internet radio. With the help of wireless-modem technology from companies like OmniSky and Inficom, remote Internet radio transmission is only a matter of time and more affordable bandwidth. Kima and iM Networks are already selling free-standing Internet radio consoles and portable players. Next year, a few American cars, including some Lincolns, are expected to roll out of the factory with Web-radio devices in their dashboards that remember your favorite choices and gather more music that you might like, and Motorola's iRadio will show up in some European models.
The new medium appeals to advertisers too. Live365.com's director of marketing, Alan Wallace, says the commercial future of Internet radio looks bright since, unlike traditional stations, sites like his can sell advertising based on the number of overall impressions rather than pegging listeners to a specific type of programming. "Whether you're listening to a hip-hop show or you're listening to the news, there will eventually be a spot for an ad," he says. For now, though, Internet radio broadcasts contain far fewer ads than regular stations do, if they have any at all.
