It is "Official"

From the Far East ~ Art Bell!

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It is "Official"

Post by Fan » 04-14-2015 05:57 PM

From Keith:The Final Results, Art Bell IS Coming Back!
POSTED ON APRIL 14, 2015 IN BUMPER MUSIC, RADIO SHOW | 1 VIEW | LEAVE A RESPONSE
After extensive analysis and elongated negotiations with several suiters, we have decided that we can go ahead on the planned launch of “Midnight in the Desert” in late July, using a business model that will allow us to manage the entire operation on our own.

As was hinted by Art via his Facebook feed, we thought about it, compared the numbers and decided we could pay for bandwidth, pay the commercial licensing fees, pay our own overhead and still be financially viable, assuming the following conditions:

1. We have a considerable number of fans subscribe to a membership service that allows you to access the archived shows anytime via the website for a reasonable / month.

2. We can sell advertising to be played during the breaks during the show. Not a lot, but enough to help pay for the music licensing during the LIVE FREE stream.

3. We can successfully curb pirated posts of our content to the Internet.

We’ll be operating under a certain specific licensing model that will allow us to ramp up from a “small webcaster” status into a large broadcaster in the future. It is imperitive that we earn enough through subscribers and ads sales to pay the bandwidth costs and music licensing fees. We believe that we can ramp up successfully using the current models in place at this time.

However, this happens to be the year (2015) that music industry participants are negotiating the next 5 years (2016-2020) rates for music licensing on the Internet. It is a wide open arena, and some license models may not survive. But we believe that we can operate under the current 2015 model for 6 months, and eventually fit into a 2016 model that is still cost effective.

We hope to recoup all of our investments within the first 6 months, so we can better endure the cost increases that will inevitably happen in 2016. If the fans support us with memberships and the advertisers are satisfied, we should be good for a long while.

Keep watching here for the launch date announcement and further updates as we can pass along. We’ll let you know when it’s time to promote the show.

— Keith and Art
So, Art is going ahead.

Read point #3 again. Going to be some trouble there, yes?
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Post by fos » 04-14-2015 08:47 PM

I would be willing to invest $5 per month to support Art Bells venture.

I hope it is successful. Ah alternative again.

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Re: It is "Official"

Post by Riddick » 04-14-2015 11:51 PM

Fan wrote: So, Art is going ahead.

Read point #3 again. Going to be some trouble there, yes?
I'd say trouble might be mitgated depending on what's meant by curbing pirated postings of content "successfully." The real trouble is people who want recordings for free who don't realize (or care) this venture won't fly for long if folks don't pay.

Like fos, they can count me in for a fiver per month. From my reading of #2 I do get the impression the podcasts won't include the tunes, but I can live with that. What I'm wondering is if there will be "Best Of" repeats streaming on weekends?

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Post by Fan » 04-15-2015 07:57 AM

His streams will be pirated immediately like any other show. He can spend his time trying to get them taken down, but this is of course impossible.

I don't know if I would pay $5 until I know the product is worth that. If there are commercials I don't think he needs my money.

He really needs to use Patreon or something similar and make levels of donations that make sense, and maybe get you some extra perks.
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Post by Raggedyann » 04-15-2015 03:16 PM

Fan wrote: I don't know if I would pay until I know the product is worth that. If there are commercials I don't think he needs my money.

I won't be paying until I feel comfortable that Art won't have a tantrum over pirating and shut it down.
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Post by Fan » 04-15-2015 03:55 PM

Raggedyann wrote: I won't be paying until I feel comfortable that Art won't have a tantrum over pirating and shut it down.


that too, and there are other considerations, like can he get phone lines working properly (I have doubts), is 64kbs enough for a quality stream (he said sirius was bad quality and it was that exact bandwidth), who is doing guest booking and do they have enough pull to get bigger names on?

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Post by Riddick » 04-15-2015 05:37 PM

Fan wrote: His streams will be pirated immediately like any other show. He can spend his time trying to get them taken down, but this is of course impossible.
Premrad recently went after u7radio with a cease and desist, which shut it down for a while until the service restarted under "new management", now presumably operating from a location where the long arm of the law comes up short.

For sure piracy isn't going away. OTOH, how long can Midnight In The Desert go on sans a healthy subscriber base?

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Post by Fan » 04-15-2015 05:49 PM

Riddick wrote: Premrad recently went after u7radio with a cease and desist, which shut it down for a while until the service restarted under "new management", now presumably operating from a location where the long arm of the law comes up short.

For sure piracy isn't going away. OTOH, how long can Midnight In The Desert go on sans a healthy subscriber base?


Did any individual listeners pay for C2C? I listen to many many free podcasts which have ads. The ads are read by the hosts like in the old radio days. It is a fairly large market. I posted a link at one point to TWiT who has a large staff and multi-million dollar revenue. There is no subscriber section, everything is free, and it is all in HD video to boot.

One of the dirty secrets of PBS is that their listener support is absolutely dwarfed by their corporate sponsorships and ads.

However, getting sponsors and ads takes a good marketing person, which I think we can safely say is not going to exist in this situation.

Every show Art does will be on usenet first, then youtube, then streaming services like u7. These will not be the ad-laden free ones either, the premium stuff will get ripped off immediately, and that is why you cannot base part of your business plan on that not happening.

What Art needs, MUST HAVE is listeners, and TONS of them. You cannot sell ads otherwise. He has to be able to prove the numbers, he has to have great statistics, tracking, demographics, etc... Can Keith provide this? We will see. Can Art draw these listeners in? We will see.
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Post by Riddick » 04-15-2015 11:26 PM

IMHO, what Art and Keith absolutely DO NOT need are listeners who won't support the site, either by stream or subscription. As it is my schedule and Internet access options preclude me from making use of the stream, so I'll be going the sub route.

That said there will always be pirates. If Art and Keith can't live with that, too bad.

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Post by kbot » 04-16-2015 06:36 AM

Wondering if Art will be going the John B Wells route of offering a subscription, and then threatening legal action - and possible embedded Trojans, in illegally posted podcasts.

I was listening to John B at first, but he kinda lost me after a while when he started rapidly recycling guests and then when he started threatening listeners who didn't pay the subscription with legal actions and malware.

Didn't think it was worth the risks......
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Post by fos » 04-16-2015 07:33 AM

John Well's system works very well. He had growing pains initially but as he ramped up his resources, it became more reliable.

Art should look into Well's streaming system. Since you can download the streams, though, I am sure it is easy to pirate.

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Post by Fan » 04-16-2015 08:01 AM

You cannot put malware into an mp3 just FYI. Also, you can download any streaming solution that exists if you know how.

And Riddick, the life of any show depends on listeners, and 90+% of those listeners are always going to be passive and not contribute anything. However, each of them is worth 6c or whatever when pitching your show to advertisers. This is how it has always worked since the earliest days of radio advertising. Without numbers you are worth nothing.

This is the point, supporting the show simply means listening to it through official channels where they can count you. This is support MORE than enough. Art does not need our paltry $5 just like I don't beg for donations here because I don't need it. If I wanted to make money here I would put up ads, not ask the very people who make the place what it is to also pay for it.

Just for instance here is a list of podcasts that are popular. None of these charge for access that I know of. http://www.ibtimes.com/pulse/ridiculous ... ow-1715858

The reason they don't charge for access? It is impossible to keep member-only shows "secret" - PLUS you make more money in the long run the more listeners you have and hiding behind a paywall is not the way to increase listenership. It is literally the same model as has always been used in old media.
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Post by fos » 04-16-2015 08:22 AM

Good information.

I wasn't actually thinking of malware, just making podcasts available to individuals that hadn't paid for the show. You know how sensitive Art is about that.

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Post by Fan » 04-16-2015 08:56 AM

fos wrote: Good information.

I wasn't actually thinking of malware, just making podcasts available to individuals that hadn't paid for the show. You know how sensitive Art is about that.

Jeff


Yes, kbot mentioned the risk of trojans in shows.

If Game of Thrones and every large hollywood studio can't keep their shows from being pirated what chance does anyone else have?

It is how it works. The best thing to do is offer it for free (which Art is apparently going to do) so people don't have to pirate it.

The problem comes if you have signed some sort of agreement for use of music which depends on it not being pirated. Because that is impossible.
The heartbreaking necessity of lying about reality and the heartbreaking impossibility of lying about it.

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Post by SquidInk » 04-16-2015 10:33 AM

Fan wrote: You cannot put malware into an mp3 just FYI. Also, you can download any streaming solution that exists if you know how.
Are we sure about this? (not challenging you, I just remember reading something somewhere...)

Anyway, files can be scanned.

https://www.virustotal.com/ ---> not a recommendation, just an example, although I have used this tool.
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