Internet Radio

I'm someone who has been fascinated by internet broadcasting and radio in general. From pirate radio stations to internet radio stations, to analog TV broadcasting, to HAM radio. Here we're going to discuss how to set up a proper internet radio station.
So why would you want to make your own internet radio station? Quiet simply, it's a way to get your name out there in the music world; if you are a new artists, you can play your music. Or, you could play other people's music, from a pop station to a classical station to a rap station (if you have to proper licenses). It's fun, you can mix your own music and learn more about broadcasting, and you can grow a website around it.
Ok, so how?Of course, you could always black out a ustream or livestream video broadcast and just play music through your soundcard, or you could have all of your listeners in skype; but this is a hassle, unprofessional, and I don't think many people would actually listen to you. Currently, the best way to broadcast is through a Shoutcast server. It's flexible, you can stream through many different programs and through web players (Programs such as iTunes), and you can find the most webhosts for it (or run the Shoutcast server yourself). Usually you'll need (or want, it'd be pretty hard to get people to listen to your shoutcast without it), a website. If you don't already have one, you'll first need a webhost to start off. Here's our hosting review site and heres our guide on creating a website. Now that we got the basics handled, lets choose a shoutcast host.
When choosing a shoutcast host, you'll want to comapre hosts with the following factors:

• Price
• Listener Cap
• Quality (in kbps or kilobytes per second, how much the stream can handle in data transfer a second)
• Licensing (whether or not they give a license to stream other people's music
• Bandwidth (some hosts cap bandwidth)
• Storage (for storing songs and such, usually used alongside an 'auto-dj')
• AutoDj (script provided to play a song when no DJs are checked in

I suggest overshooting on listeners and bandwidth, but be realistic. A 30 listener cap is good enough to begin with (as lots of radio stations don't take off nowadays). For a good bandwidth calculator, you can check out this place.
Now that we figured out what we want, lets looke at hosts.
Paid:

• Web Savers Radio
• Shout Host Direct
• Steam Monster
• Slip7
• Sleepy Engineers

Paid with Licensing (You don't need a license to stream, just to stream copyrighted material)

• Live 365

Licensing Companies (For any internet radio station, 'umbrella' licenses)

• BMI Licensing
• Sound Exchange Licensing

Free Hosts
Warning: In my experience, this radio hosts have low uptime, often require advertising, and often don't allow you to embed your code. They aren't licensed and probably don't have autodjs.

• Caster FM
• Listen 2 My Radio
• Free Stream Hosting

DJ software and broadcasters:
Quiet simply, you will now need to have a way to send your content to the server. For mac, I suggest NiceCast and Audio Hijack Pro. It's what I've used in the past and it's pretty much unbeatable coupled with a good audio mixer (as you can use audio from any source on your computer). Sam Broadcaster is what I suggest for Windows. It has built in audio mixxing softare and is pretty advanced. It's different to set up every server depending on your combination of software. Usually it's a matter of inputting your server's account username, password, IP (or hostname), and port.
Publishing your Radio Stream
If your host does not give you code to embed your radio into a browser, there are many ways. You can sign up here for a flash player. There are several ways to link your server to iTunes or Windows Media player (and usually your host supplies this information). You'll probably want to have a listen page (and allow people to listen on every page with a player embedded on the layout perferably), a contact/request page, a playlist of the songs you've plaid, a schedule page, a page listing your DJs, along with every additional feature you need a page for (such as chatboxes, a fourm, etc).
Once you get your stream running, you'll probably look at how to attract people to your stream. Of course, you should already have an idea of what genre you'll be streaming (basically if you'll be playing classical, pop, talk, elecrtonic, etc.) If you're host hasn't already listed you at sites such as shoutcast.com, you'll defiantley want to get listed out there. It's free of course. If you've ever advertised a site before, you know the basics on adveriting a website; it's not that much different, other then you can attract people with different sources such as by mixing musics, setting up a podcast from recordings of your broadcasts, and the fact that you can have interactive features such as:

• A Forum
• A Chatroom
• Requests and Chatrooms
• Different DJs
• Interviews, giveaways, quizzes (using programs such as Skype or Ventrilo)

and practically anything you can think of that a usual radio would use. Promote it by word of mouth, uploading podcats to Youtube and other podcast/video sharing sites (remember, you can always just put audio on a single image video for video sharing sites), by just asking fledgling artists to use their music, play your radio live (as a DJ in public places), swap links/join 'affiliate' programs with other related radio or audio sites, and like I said, praticually any way such as regular web advertising..

Making Money
There are several ways to make money with this type of service, such as:

• Audio Ads. If you can get advertisers, this is usually very effective and profitable
• On your site, use regular monetizing techniques, such as Google adsense.
• Membership programs, for extra content, recordings, forum boards, chat rooms, or special access to radio shows
• Selling Records
• Doing Live Shows
• Being Sponsored (IE, saying 'This hour is brought to you by.. company name here)

and any creative way you can think of. Running a radio can be profitable, fun, and you can grow a great community around it.
I want to stream my radio on FM or AM bands
Everyone wants their own radio station, right? Well, it's not just as easy as putting up an atenea (I wish it was). Although it can be pretty hard when you're just starting out, running an internet radio will become easy and simple quickly. You can learn about the legallities of the US system here, although I hear it's alot harder then that as the FCC likes to auction off licenses and bands to big coperations, just to ensure you don't have freedom of speach over the airways. If you actually read that dead block of text, you'll come to the notice: NOTICE: THE FCC IS NOT ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR NEW FM COMMERCIAL STATIONS AT THE PRESENT TIME.
Ending on that note, I hope you have fun in your broadcasting carreer. I hope this helped explain the basics as it took me 2 years to get any decent information on this subject. Thanks!