Christmas Radio Station...Should we build one?

[Jeff Westover]

You guys know me...if it's Christmas I'm nuts enough to build a website about it. On my mind at the moment is a Christmas radio station.

Now, I know there are several great online avenues for Christmas radio. And I'm not knocking any of it.

But I'm wondering...what would YOU all like to see in an online Christmas radio station?

I'm not saying I'm actually going to do it. But I'm looking at it. Before I get into the deep waters with another hair-brained idea I want to get some opinions and feedback.

What do you all think?

Jeff

[sheepsnot]

You are right that there are some good radio stations out there and to duplicate them would have minimal impact, though since you have to pay or risk not being able to listen to some because of high traffic, having another one would ease the load. But, I'd love to have a Christmas radio station that played a mix of music and old Christmas radio shows, like Jack Benny or Bob Hope.
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d145/dandsf480/elves-caroling-198x198.gif

[Smemorina]

:grin:
Would be beautiful to have one Radio (MMC) that transmits music of christmas (of all the world), and would be beautiful that the night of Christmas who could itself be made salutes directly therefore has relatives far away can feel itself.
OK ok excused but loves to dream...
Ciao ciaoooo

[RadioJonD]

Can there be too many Christmas Radio stations? Of course not! See my reply @ the X-mas Place, Jeff!

[sheepsnot]

I can't remember which forum we were in, but the latest news on XM Radio's holiday lineup is here: http://xmradio.com/holiday/ and they start, as we feared, on Thanksgiving Day.

[Twinkle]

Jeff: I think it's a wonderful idea you have. There are very few continuous play free Christmas stations on internet. They may give you several hours of free play but after that it is a pay and most folks are not willing to do this, right or wrong but it is the way it is in cyberspace. As for me, I love the good old traditionals by Bing and Perry. I do not like all the jazzy new stuff that absolutely crucifies the beautiful carols. :smile:

[drumboytko]

There are a lot of great christmas radio stations online, but I think there would be great benefit to a MMC radio station. We are a very active group here and we all have alot of great opinions on the holiday season, I could see the station being extremely diverse and unique, it would be very awesome!

[Jeff Westover]

That's one of the things I'm mulling over: music is great and would be at the core of a MMC station...but I think it would be awesome to have alternative programming such as "ask-the-experts" on topics such as decorating with Christmas lights, perhaps having something on Christmas traditions, etc -- talk show stuff dedicated to holidays now and then.

Also, different hours of programming dedicated to different kinds of Christmas music -- choral, jazz, etc.

Been thinking though...it may be better to stream these as canned-on-demand kind of programs rather than just live streaming them.

Also been researching the cost. And I see now, Twinkle, why there are so few "free" Internet radio stations. The cost is prohibitive because of royalties and streaming fees. In looking over some different options I ran a cost analysis of roughly 5000 listener hours suppporting *at most* 100 simultaneous listeners and it is going to take a dedicated server and approximately $500 a month to pull this off.

My problem with this is that we already have a cost-prohibitive venture with our sites and adding this kind of feature is going to be a killer. Why? Because I foresee passing that 100 listener threshold in a hurry. Yesterday, Saturday 11/19, we had roughly 42,000 unique visitors to MMC. If we take even a small portion of that clicking on a live stream you can imagine the costs involved. In talking with some of the other radio station operators out there they are mostly Christmas enthusiasts who limit themselves to 100 listeners just because they cannot handle the higher costs. And what good would serving 100 listeners do for us?

These are the issues we're grappling with.

But, I'm still serious about it. We have acquired a domain -- Merry Christmas Radio.com (catchy, eh?) -- and I'm going to launch it in a few days. Not as a radio station -- not yet. No, it will be a directory of existing radio stations out there and it will provide programming info and basic FYI kind of stuff about Internet radio. Over the course of the next year we're going to poll site users about their preferences in Christmas programming and learn exactly what they are looking for. I know everyone wants it for free. I want it for free. But how to do that? That's what we're looking to achieve.

Perhaps, if we can answer some of these vexing issues we can launch our own stream in one form or another next fall. I've always wanted to do radio, it's been kind of a dream. To make that happen with Christmas would really be fulfillment of that for me on many levels. But we're handling so much as it is right now (none of our sites make money) and we're going to have to take time to find a way to make this happen.
:-?
Jeff

[RadioJonD]

Jeff, have you considered offering a show via Podcast? Royalties would still have to be paid, I'm sure. But you wouldn't have any streaming fees since we could log in, down load, and listen at our leisure!

http://radio.about.com/od/podcastingandpodcasters/index.htm?terms=podcasting

[Jeff Westover]

Oh yes. I think the download streaming option is actually better for us Christmas lovers than live streaming anyway. I picture having playlists of roughly 2 hours each with music and programming customized by category. You could stream it off of the site or download it, either way.

Podcasting has to be considered though. It is, after all, music.

Jeff

[dvdguy]

I just stumbled on this, & it got me to wondering again if it would be possible to incorporate a christmas radio feature on the site?

[sndgrdn]

I am not saying that there shouldn't be a station here, but I am sure there are lots of station owners at this site. I wouldn't want to offend them by having a station here after they are advertising there own. I joined this forum through christmasbroadband.com. He has a great station I think. Its the oldest christmas station on live365! :-D :???:

[ChristmasBroadband]

Thanks! Maybe Jeff and I can work something out between us.

[MarthaK]

You are right that there are some good radio stations out there and to duplicate them would have minimal impact, though since you have to pay or risk not being able to listen to some because of high traffic, having another one would ease the load. But, I'd love to have a Christmas radio station that played a mix of music and old Christmas radio shows, like Jack Benny or Bob Hope.
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d145/dandsf480/elves-caroling-198x198.gif

Ditto on that! Can you add Lum & Abner, old Christmas episodes of Gunsmoke, Bing Crosby's specials, etc. There is a a lot of good radio out there.

[sheepsnot]

Right, the classics! Married with Children, Ren and Stempy...

[dvdguy]

the married w/ children where "santa" parachutes into the backyard?

[sheepsnot]

I just remember an episode where he keeps falling off the roof. Can't remember why.

[dvdguy]

yes I know which you mean, kinda like home improvement