Media Tools
The Rough Guide to Internet Radio
This book is better than the web
At first sight a paper book about web-based radio seems unclear on the concept. Shouldn't this all be on a website? Well, no. The web is ideal for searching; books excel at orientation. For an overview of what is happening to radio via the internet, this brief guide is excellent and thorough. It will direct listeners to the fabulous trove of international channels you can pick up on your PC, and provide wannabe radio-producers with enough background to get you started narrowcasting your own show.
-- KK
The Rough Guide to Internet Radio
L.A. Heberlain
2002, 370 pages
$10
Rough Guides
London
Amazon
Excerpt:
All songs considered
NPR
Many listeners of NPR's afternoon news program All Things Considered have long enjoyed the snippets of music used as breaks between news stories; in fact, one of the largest categories of mail received by NPR has been of the form "what was that song you played after the story about...?" All Songs Considered is a Web-only program playing the full versions of the music played on All Things Considered. It is archived and searchable.
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KEXP
University of Washington/Experience Music Project. KEXP provides some excellent examples of how to use the technology. To take the simplest example, live playlists on the website. This is something everyone should do. If you are listening and hear something that you would like to know what it is, your choices with most stations are a) wait 20 minutes until the DJ (maybe) identifies it; or b) call them on the telephone and (possibly) get through to ask the DJ. The Web is perfect for this. It's visual. It doesn't take one away from the sound. It's instant. Every radio station should do it. Specialty shows are scheduled evenings and weekends. Turn in any weekday for impeccably mixed music, mostly extremely current. Particularly sharp is Amanda Wilde, daily 2-6pm Pacific.
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In All Languages
WKCR
Sunday 11pm-2am Eastern. Each week this show explores a different musical tradition, for example, conch shell music of Tonga, Peruvian mountain music or Iranian classical music.
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Music 52-15
Radio Nederland
Tuesday 1000 Greenwich.; rebroadcast several times Tuesday, and archived on the website for 24 hours. Host: Martha Hawley. This half-hour program is organized around a theme each week, but the music is truly eclectic: acoustic guitar, big band, celtic fusion, dangdut, funk Galician ballads, Hispanic rap, Italian opera, jazz, klezmer, Lusitanian love songs, Malagasy moods, no holds barred, Om Kalthoum, presidential pomp, Quebec riffs, rocksteady, slack-key, Tang dynasty, ugric undulations, vindaloo calypso, West African blues, Xhosa, Yaounde yellers and even zydeco. Much educational background information, delivered in English.