Internet Radio - Brief Article

Whole Earth, Spring, 2000 by Jeanne Carstensen

Internet radio is radio without airwaves, which is to say, it's technically not radio. Approximately 3,000 stations broadcast over the Web, transmitting digital signals, by telephone or cable lines, available to every Internet computer on the planet.

Most "Netcasting" is streaming audio from a traditional radio station whose signal is converted from analog into digital and then transmitted to online listeners in real time. Anyone with a computer, audio software, and a fast connection (56.6 baud or higher is best) can surf the Net and listen directly to hundreds of stations around the world; visit www.wmbr.org for links to more than 1,500 of them.

Even more exciting is audio material produced for online ears only. This ranges from twenty-four-hour music sites like Green Witch Radio (www .greenwitch.com), to the spacerock/emo/indie/psychedelic jazz/dream-pop/fusion/prog-rock/dub of Spank Radio (www.spankradio.com) and organizations such as the Women's International News Gathering Service (www.wings.org).

If you have a hankering to start Netcasting yourself, all you need besides the usual studio equipment (microphone, CD player, mixer) is a PC, audio-encoding software (such as Shoutcast), and a fat connection to the Internet (such as a DSL line)--an initial investment of under $2,000. Just as FM did in the 1940s, the Internet is exploding the possibilities for new folks to get into "broadcasting"--except that in this case the spectrum is endless cyberspace.

RADIO ON THE WEB

The Official IUMA Guide

Jeff Patterson and Ryan Melcher. 1998; $34.95. Peachpit Press.

The best book. Excellent on trade-offs among various streaming formats; step-by-step talkthrough for software configuration.

-- David Batstone

WEB DEVELOPER.COM GUIDE TO STREAMING MULTIMEDIA

Jose Alvear. 1998; 448-page book with CD-ROM. $44.99. John Wiley & Sons.

Covers both audio and video, with a variety of product reviews. The CD-ROM has a selection of useful software.

-- DB

SOFTWARE RESOURCES ON THE WEB

Audio software for listening in a variety of formats, such as RealAudio and MP3, can be downloaded free or at low cost from several sites, including www.real.com, www.xingtech.com, and www.audioactive.com.

-- DB

GiveMeTalk (www .givemetalk.com) provides services, access to tools, and instructions to produce your own show on their site or listen to a wide range of talk shows from around the world.

Destiny Media (www .dice.net/radio) says, "Our goal is to provide a suite of streaming software tools and technologies, designed and priced for everyone who works or plays in the Internet."

-- DB

RADIO 68H

www.radio68h.or.id

Last year, after militias forced journalists to leave East Timor, Radio 68H got the news out. Freelancers sent reports via the Internet to the Jakarta headquarters, where they were packaged and distributed to 150 radio stations via both the Internet and more conventional radio transmitters.

-- DK

RADIO B2-92

www.freeb92.net

B92 was virtually the only independent voice to survive Slobodan Milosevic's decade-long assault on Yugoslav media. When he banned the station in April, 1999 it became a cause celebre for media activists worldwide, who quickly launched a Free B92 campaign on the Internet, with a network of Web sites that offered streaming audio from 1392 journalists and collaborators inside and outside Yugoslavia. In August, 1999 the station returned to the air as Radio B2-92. Their slogan: "Trust no one, not even us, but keep the faith."

-- JC

FCC-LICENSED BROADCAST STATIONS:

AM radio: 4,783

FM radio: 5,766

FM educational: 2,066

UNLICENSED MICRO-RADIO STATIONS:

about 1,000

STATIONS "NETCASTING" ON THE WEB:

about 3,000