I Have An Internet Radio Station!

Number one - there is nothing wrong with "tooting your own horn". It's something that I would advise everyone to do!

Number 2 - While I didn't start this radio station with the intention of making money at it I have had a chance to read posts from others that have their own Internet Stations and one of the topics that has come up is how they can make money at it. That's when my "professional" vibe kicked in. Now why would I want to have an Internet Radio station? Well the most important reason is that I used to be a DJ for a lot of years back in the 80's and 90's and to be quite honest I miss it! When I was working as a DJ it wasn't just "DJ" work that I did. I did a lot of production work like making commercials and I was even the producer for a talk show! But besides that I did sales and I even worked on and repaired the equipment. All of this experience has just added to my skills and it brings back memories when someone posts and asks how they can make money with their Internet Radio station. Now there are a lot of seasoned pros that have their own Internet Radio stations and they have offered their tips and examples of how they are making money with their Internet stations. The most often cited way is that they have advertising on their web pages that relate to their Internet Radio stations. Now take note here because I said they have advertising on their webpages and not on their station broadcasts. To make a long story short it isn't allowed if you have a certain kind of station.

But for me this started out as a pleasure kind of thing - something I love to do - and since I'm always talking about taking something that you love to do and turn it into a career then I should go on to say how you can turn it into a successful business.

• Number one - if you haven't done this kind of thing before it may be quite frustrating for you. Most of the people that have their own Internet station has had experience relating to it in one way or another. I should also add that this is not a free service! There is a monthly/yearly fee involved. (By the way my station is on Live365.com).
  

  Basically you first have to decide what kind of format your station will be. Personally mine is a "community" station for my local area with music filling in the gaps. The basic technique is picking out your music and uploading to your space so that it can be added to the playlist. Since the music that I play originates from various forms (ie vinyl, cds, tapes) I simply have to convert it to the right format before I add it to my playlist. The same thing applies to the "spoken" stuff that you want to add. For me I record it and then upload it to my playlist. Now since I have a radio background I can do some creative producing to the stuff that I add to my playlist. This kind of skill can be used to form your own production company where you can do things like produce jingles and professional recordings for others.
  

• Like I mentioned above a lot of the broadcasters rent out advertising space on their webpages - another good source of income.
  

• While it's not "money-making" a lot of the broadcasters also receive free music - BUT you can turn this into a moneymaking thing. I'm not talking about accepting money for playing certain music (I think that's payola and I think that is illegal) I'm talking about building up a reputation as a legitmate radio station where you will come under the radar of those in the business - people who are anxious to get their music played. You can turn that into your advantage by creating a newsletter for your station - accepting advertising and the like!

There are many ways that you can take this and turn it into a money-making career!