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So how are all these radio stations connected to the Internet? Do all these radio stations have a server? Or is there some organization which does the broadcast

So how are all these radio stations connected to the Internet? Do all these radio stations have a server? Or is there some organization which does the broadcasting on behalf? Who pays for the streaming fees? Can I start my own station?

dsr_ 6y ago
Actually -- all of these things. Many radio stations have a server. Many of them sign up with an organization that does it for them. Sometimes the station just pays the fees out of general revenue, and sometimes the org inserts its own ads. You can start your own station with icecast2, GPLd and available from icecast.org Legal worries are your own.
soylentcola 6y ago
Can't speak for every one of these, but yeah, it's usually just an audio feed encoded and streamed out to a server that handles the streams to listeners. There are several ways to do it but I only know the way I used to do it back in the early/mid 2000's. Back then, I had an ever-updated playlist running on WinAmp with a ShoutCast plugin. Whatever I played (or when I switched over to mic, etc.) was streamed to a ShoutCast server I had running on some storage provided by a dude I knew who was working at a small ISP. He basically said they would never care or notice that I was streaming a 128k/sec stream to maybe 5 or 10 people at a time so just go for it, heh... That said, I could've run it from home if I wanted, but this was more stable on an early 2000's broadband connection. Otherwise, today you could probably do this with any suitable online virtual web server. As far as streaming fees, well...if you mean bandwidth, you can see above. If you mean license fees for copyrighted material, then that's the main reason I stopped running one. Loads of these did (and still do) fly under the radar, but you're still essentially sharing media with other people, so if it's not something you have the license to broadcast or share, you have to pay to license it. For a time, I had been looking into an ASCAP/BMI license since (terrestrial) radio doesn't really pay much at all for that. Airplay is free advertising for commercial music sales, after all. But somewhere along the line in the wake of Napster freaking the hell out of music labels, the laws were put in place to be much more restrictive on streaming radio. Instead of a relatively affordable blanket license, you also had to pay per-song-per-listener royalties. The whole thing made it cost prohibitive for amateurs to legally run a music streaming station so I just said screw it and moved on. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from streaming something else. You can do a talk show or get license to stream local unsigned artists. You could do all sorts of things, just as people do with live video streaming. You just can't really do anything like typical FM or satellite music radio unless you wanna deal with quite a bit of licensing and expense outside of just a PC and bandwidth.
ascorbic 6y ago
If you're willing to ignore legacy clients, you can use HTTP streaming with MPEG-DASH or HLS. These protocols chunk the stream into individual audio files of a few seconds each, which can be served from a normal HTTP server or even an S3 bucket with CloudFlare. The protocol allows better quality codecs than Shoutcast, handles dynamic bitrates, and even lets you rewind live streams. There are open source player libraries which work in all modern browsers, and some support them natively too.

dsr_ 6y ago

Actually -- all of these things. Many radio stations have a server. Many of them sign up with an organization that does it for them. Sometimes the station just pays the fees out of general revenue, and sometimes the org inserts its own ads. You can start your own station with icecast2, GPLd and available from icecast.org Legal worries are your own.

soylentcola 6y ago

Can't speak for every one of these, but yeah, it's usually just an audio feed encoded and streamed out to a server that handles the streams to listeners. There are several ways to do it but I only know the way I used to do it back in the early/mid 2000's. Back then, I had an ever-updated playlist running on WinAmp with a ShoutCast plugin. Whatever I played (or when I switched over to mic, etc.) was streamed to a ShoutCast server I had running on some storage provided by a dude I knew who was working at a small ISP. He basically said they would never care or notice that I was streaming a 128k/sec stream to maybe 5 or 10 people at a time so just go for it, heh... That said, I could've run it from home if I wanted, but this was more stable on an early 2000's broadband connection. Otherwise, today you could probably do this with any suitable online virtual web server. As far as streaming fees, well...if you mean bandwidth, you can see above. If you mean license fees for copyrighted material, then that's the main reason I stopped running one. Loads of these did (and still do) fly under the radar, but you're still essentially sharing media with other people, so if it's not something you have the license to broadcast or share, you have to pay to license it. For a time, I had been looking into an ASCAP/BMI license since (terrestrial) radio doesn't really pay much at all for that. Airplay is free advertising for commercial music sales, after all. But somewhere along the line in the wake of Napster freaking the hell out of music labels, the laws were put in place to be much more restrictive on streaming radio. Instead of a relatively affordable blanket license, you also had to pay per-song-per-listener royalties. The whole thing made it cost prohibitive for amateurs to legally run a music streaming station so I just said screw it and moved on. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from streaming something else. You can do a talk show or get license to stream local unsigned artists. You could do all sorts of things, just as people do with live video streaming. You just can't really do anything like typical FM or satellite music radio unless you wanna deal with quite a bit of licensing and expense outside of just a PC and bandwidth.

ascorbic 6y ago

If you're willing to ignore legacy clients, you can use HTTP streaming with MPEG-DASH or HLS. These protocols chunk the stream into individual audio files of a few seconds each, which can be served from a normal HTTP server or even an S3 bucket with CloudFlare. The protocol allows better quality codecs than Shoutcast, handles dynamic bitrates, and even lets you rewind live streams. There are open source player libraries which work in all modern browsers, and some support them natively too.