What makes a good radio station??

[djgary72]

In these days of Internet radio stations being on the increase I'm Interested to hear what other people think about what makes a radio station worth listening to these days?

 

The Music? The Presenters? The way it sounds?

 

I've trawled through some stations listed on Shoutcast recently and found most of them just to be bland and really not worth listening to. Some stations that have been on the go for over 10 years these days seem to be sounding tired and worn out.

 

So ..... Over to you. Thoughts please!

[saint]

It is a combination of everything.

 

Quality music, presenters that DO NOT obliterate the music by speaking over it all the time, well presented website, willing to take feedback from audience via phone call, e mail or social media. The station makes you feel at home, where ever you are.

[Lmarrie]

Good music, entertaining presenters, relevent and interesting content and not just "regular" radio moved to the web.

[GKIye]

About a decade ago (more or less) they called it "a Feel Good radio"

- say : a sunny feeling all day long

- time to be less serious than what is happening in the daily life of everyone

- keeping the variety going

 

All elements are both right and wrong ...

They work at FM and/or national radio

However at internetradio the "Feel Good" element is the choice of music that the audience like

There are still tons of internetradio's, and I presume they gonna last for ever ...

and there are still lots of them who are playing their format (80s only, 90s & 2000 only, Oldies, CHR etc etc)

 

With or without hosts / presenters the listeners stay addicted to those stations who are playing their choice of music

... and the stations who are using a specific format have LOTs of listeners

 

However, if stations with a top ranking are rated ... it looks to Me that most of them don't have "THE" sound

Some even sounds terrible, or they have a poor audio / stream quality, or they stream at 48 or 64kbps

but they play that specific format and it looks that not that many people are bothered about the fact that audio, stream, bitrates etc aren't that perfect

 

At the time I bought my first pc and offcourse discovered the internet, one of the first stations I met was WOLFfm

Great IDs, nice music, low bitrate ... but anyway it was enjoyable

After a while I learned how to check their stats ... and unbelievable ... they had a lot of listeners ... some periods 500+ and even higher (900+ etc)

Maybe You gonna recognize their logo ? Check : http://wolffm.com/

Click "About" and You gonna be amazed of what You gonna see ... It looks to Me all very basic ... apart of the amount of computers they have ...

They stream at 56kbps ... However it looks that the project still exists, but the button to their stream don't work properly

Their twitter account learns that they should be back on air very soon ... check : https://twitter.com/WolfNashville

I guess, ... even better ... I'm sure that many similar stations do work the way WOLFfm does

 

Lots of Us are decades into music, radio, media etc (Me = since 1978)

and maybe We all are willing to do it to perfect ?

The sound is never ever good enough, We all want 128kbps (at least) ... and We want to satisfy people with the best in music, the best produced IDs ... and if possible some good voices to make a daily / weekly radioshow

 

What is the right type of radio ?

answer : the listener decides

[Wayne S.]

Everyone has their ideal music they like to listen to. A person will usually keep looking till they can find a station that matches as close as possible to what they want. Their ideal music will change from day to day, depending on their mood. Some days a person may want upbeat and happy go lucky music, the next they may want something more soothing, to help calm down the nerves! The next day maybe something that takes them back to a certain time or place. It is impossible to offer all of that on one station. That is why stations that have a certain nitch, do so well. The listeners know that they play that same music, day in and day out. So, when they are in the mood for that music, they know they can depend on them to be there. That is why it is important, to choose your nitch, and stick with it.

 

If a person wants to run a station, and wants as many listeners as possible, then you have to look at what genre your trying to appeal to. Some genres are going to attract more listeners than others. You can't expect a station that plays opera, to attract as many listeners as say a classic rock or country station. With all that said, I think a lot of it boils down to how comfortable the station makes the listener feel.

 

Personally, I don't like a station that plays song after song after song with no vocal interaction from a DJ, even if it is streamed! Just a few words from the DJ, after every 3 or 4 songs, more than a station ID or jingle. I like for the DJ to sound like he is talking to me, not a microphone! Use some expression in their voice, not dull and flat. I like to hear a small pause between songs, only a second or two, but, I don't like one song fading into another, back to back to back. I don't necessarily look for the best sounding stream, when looking for an internet radio station. I don't think most people are either, since they are tuned in on either a phone or listening on a cheap or mid-grade pair of computer speakers. Most want decent quality sound, without being distorted due to clipping, or the volume constantly having to be turned up and down, due to station not normalizing their content, especially commercials!

 

That's just my likes and dislikes, others probably differ on theirs.