What is Internet Radio?
Internet radio is audio streaming used to broadcast audio content over the internet. People can listen to your content live or from the cloud on everything from smartphones to tablets whether they are at home, at work or in the car. We help you put the pieces together to empower your ideas in the new creator economy. If you want to learn more, let’s talk about creative ways to reach your audience reliably and affordably!
Why Start an Internet Radio Station?
Global Reach: One of the main advantages of starting an internet radio station or streaming your existing AM or FM radio station online is that it can be accessed from anywhere in the world.
Revenue Generation: Use internet radio broadcasting as a revenue generating asset.
Real Time Interactive: Live Internet radio can broadcast in real time with interactive engaging and personalizing content to enhance the listening experience.
Accessibility: Internet radio can be accessed through many devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, and smart speakers. This enables your audience to tune in anytime, anywhere, making it a convenient option for listening to their favorite music, news, or talk shows.
Improved Sound Quality: Internet radio often provides higher quality audio compared to traditional analog radio. This is because internet broadcasting is a digital audio stream resulting in a better overall listening experience.
Cost-Effective: You can run your own professional Internet radio station for less than the cost of a latte a day. How can that be? Today’s smartphones, laptops and tablets have more processing power than the computers used in the NASA Apollo program and can be turned into virtual production studios and transmitters as well as receivers of digital content.
How Audio Streaming Works
There are many ways to broadcast audio on the internet. Here is an overview of some basics.
- Audio stream encoder (software or hardware versions)
- Radio streaming servers (Radio Stream Host- Internet Radio Hosting)
- Audio stream players (players and apps on various devices)
Audio Stream Encoder: The first step in the process involves converting audio content into a streaming format. This is done using an encoder, which compresses the audio data into a format that can be easily transmitted over the internet.
Streaming Radio Server: Once the audio is encoded, it is then sent to our servers. The server is responsible for making the audio available over the internet. It does this by storing the audio data and transmitting it to listeners upon request.
Stream Player: The player is the software that retrieves the audio data from the server. It translates the data back into an audio format that can be heard by the listener. The player can be a standalone application or a built-in feature in a web browser or mobile app.
Live Audio Streaming: For a live broadcast, the encoder and streamer work together in real-time. The audio feed runs to the sound card of a computer running the encoder software at the broadcast location, and the stream is uploaded to the streaming server. Broadcasting apps are also available to produce and stream directly from your iOS or Android device.
Auto DJ – Cloud Streaming: Auto DJ allows you to upload your sound files and manage your content in the cloud. Adjust music or show rotations, schedules and other events. So you can broadcast live, or in Auto DJ mode from the cloud which can still sound live but you are free to do other things.
Today most of your audio content production can be done virtually in the software domain at a fraction of the cost of studio hardware.
Where to begin?
The best place to start is by giving us a call to talk about what you would like to do. We’ll be happy to share ideas and create solutions to fit your specific needs and budget.
