New Music Radio

So, long time no see.  Somehow, I've found myself on the Board of Directors of the local Adult Album Alternative non-commercial radio station right as it is fighting for it's life because of poor decisions by past board members.

Anyhow, it seems like the kind of music that some of all y'all might dig, so go check it out and let me know what you think. You won't hear any back announcing, because we've had to barebones the station. The mix is currently curated, but automated.  That sucks, but we're trying to dig ourselves out of a hole.

http://www.kusp.org/live.shtml

Comments

  • Well, good luck to you. My wife was in situations somewhat like yours back in the 90s and both stations are doing fine now. If only I could find the time to listen to radio I'd be happy to give some feedback.
    Seems around here some folks drift in and out, I'm one of them. I was just drifting back in last Feb. and saw your new band post. I found Johnny on the Phone on emusic and it made the rounds through the rotation along with Haggis's SL9 this spring. Thanks.

    I'm not sure what I could do to help you out but I'll think some good thoughts for you tonight.
    -always
  • edited June 2016
    Wow - growing radio in the 21st century - sounds a bit like Sisyphus rolling the stone up the hill.

    I'm not an expert, just a consumer (who hasn't listened to radio regularly since the 80's). I did once own a cafe that had local musicians play at night so I sympathize with your challenge. My first thought is to have your research hyper-local news: http://balihoo.com/2015-emerging-trend-hyper-local-marketing/  Not quite sure how that fits music radio as it a tactic from newspapers (who face a similar decline) but it should be food for thought.

    The last time I was excited about radio was when FM first took off. DJs were not yet personalities and they shared their knowledge about the latest music (what we now call music discovery). They were also free to do unusual things, like play whole album sides, which quickly faded once the large advertising accounts took over. 

    I would also suggest assigning time slots for regular reoccurring shows/themes. For example, I remember hurrying home to listen to the local college radio station that had a late afternoon show where they read "Lord of the Rings" over some cool background music (back when LOTR was still a cult thing). I would think you can attract more listeners with variety but you need to frame it, so people know what to expect. [I always thought readings of sci-fi short stories would be cool but I might be the only one who feels that way]

    People who read forums like this are very interested in music discovery. However, the majority of people want the comfortable; while being somewhat aware of the latest big thing. How open people are to new music varies a lot by community; so do your homework on your local scene.

    Music taste has fragmented, sources of entertainment are vast and varied and we clearly are no longer in a pop/rock renaissance. You have your work cut out for you - best of luck!

    Edit: some show ideas I've had are -
    Music history, what was hot in different time periods;
    The roots of rock and roll, searching for the "first" R 'n' R record and
    Explore genres, define them and play examples [could be fun to have listeners vote for the next genre to cover].
  • Thanks for the comments, and, confused, thanks for picking up the SA90 stuff. I'm still about $1500 in the hole on it, which is fine, but every purchase helps.  Hope you enjoyed it.

    The recent data shows that most people want consistency, rather than individual shows.  They want to know that when they tune in, they are going to hear something that relates to what they hear any other time they tune in.  We are trying to move away from shows in specific timeslots and go for an overall feel. New Music Discovery.  We've actually had quite a bit of positive response, but we are so far down a hole currently it isn't clear we can reach ground level.  But, we're trying.

  •  :#

    Lash the forearm, secure the mainsail - heavy seas ahead! 
  • I could listen to this

    Is there an online playlist
  • How do you make money, will there be ads, pledge drives, bake sales, what?
  • There isn't an online playlist at the present, because prior to the current automated curated mix, live people input what they were playing when they played it.  Now we have one person creating the mixes and doing all the day to do station operations, and we don't have an efficient way of entering playlists.  We are working on it, though.

    We hope to meet expenses through memberships, underwriting (ads), a short quarterly pledge drive, and any other means necessary.  We have 25-30k in expenses each month, and we are desperately trying to make enough money each month to cover that.  Prior to going to a single employee, expenses were over 60k/month and we weren't even close to bringing that in.

    The reasons are long and varied.  You can find a few articles about KUSP online that explain how we ended up where we are.  I just joined the board in February, after everything was already screwed up.
  • This past Friday night mix was totally banging, all with music that I had never heard before, and I generally don't get this excited about new music by people that I have never heard of before.

    Someone should analyze whatever was going on about 7 or 8 o'clock last Friday and do that again, frequently.
  • Back on the radio...for now. We'll see how long this lasts. 
    It's a progressive arts community in Silver City, NM
    (30 galleries within a town of only 10,000) 
    and I love visiting there a few times a year.
    They loved the audition disc I dropped off a few weeks ago.
    We agreed on a 4th of July special for the first show,
    so it's not too typical - but the atypical has always been the
    thrust of my radio shows - the ones in the 70's and 80's.

    The only frustrating thing is that because of their automated system, 
    I have no ability to creatively segue songs together.
    That may change (I hope), but for now, it's a bit like:

    • song

    • song

    • announcement

    • song

    • song

    • song

    • announcement

    etc ... with no overlapping which kind of takes some 
    of the creative wind out of my sails.
    No under-the-voice music either, for now. c'est le vie...
    but, that may change (or not).

    First show was last night at 8PM Mountain time
    and will be repeated tonight. I'm pretty happy with
    the sudden promotion that it's received by the manager
    of the station - he made three audio "intro," "midtro" and "outros"
    and sent out an email update with a fun design logo for the show 
    ("Random Radio").

    Playlist here.

    and home page mention here.

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