Would this be useful to station owners?

English General
1

Hi all,

I’m developing a web based automated listen again project to help a local community radio station cut costs, but I have a question for the community.

If the annual price is right (affordable), would such a service be useful to you guys and gals?

Just testing the water.

2

Matt,

Before we answer your question, can you first please explain what you mean by “a web based automated listen again project” ?

Adriaan

3

Sorry, ok for people who haven’t used a Listen Again service before, this is basically what I’m planning to provide.

Much like Canstream’s ALISA platform (http://www.canstream.co.uk/listen-again), I’m developing a platform that records radio shows from a stations internet stream, be that shoutcast or icecast. Then the station can provide said shows for listen again to there listeners. Shows are then automatically deleted after a period of time, such as 7 days, 14 days, or 30 days.

Detailed analytics are record for plays of recorded, and the whole platform, both public facing and admin section for radio stations, will be mobile friendly.

4

Conceptually a good idea but I think you may be entering into a world of licensing hurt, which is what has prevented most stations offering such a service. Took the BBC a long time for dowloads and then strictly under iPlayer control. I used to download BBC shows from Listen Again all the time when someone hacked that and offered Radio Downloader. Sadly that turned nasty and finally died.

Good luck though.

5

True. It’s interesting though how www.dar.fm, founded by Michael Robertson of MP3.com fame, has managed to dodge that issue for so long.

Luckily for my platform, PodBox.me, community radio in the U.K is allowed via Offcom and licencing regs to provide a listen again services for listeners, be it limited to 30 days I believe.

But for now it is happily recording and providing the listen again for Voice FM in Southampton, and along with my Shoutcast listener analytic’s web app, it’s providing a great service for them.

I am considering spinning the Shoutcast Listener Analytic’s web app off into a separate service. Currently it has been tested with Shoutcast V2 servers, and I need to get my hands on a v1 server to test if it works on that too. But it can provide real-time data for station managers down to the minute, including city and country stats, so it is a very useful app I hacked together originally for my own use over a weekend.