Rick's Blog - MTB Commentary - Stay Tuned
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Something called Music Mind Expansion has been suggested as a characterization of the programming heard on Music Tampa Bay. A visitor in the guestbook attributed MTB to re-conceptualizing basic radio program formatting with standard music clock procedures common in commercial radio. How this comes to be manifest as "mind expansion" can only be speculated. As it is seen from a cyber studio at a GPS location somewhere offshore from Apollo Beach, the result is a new genre in a radio programming sense; mainly local, original, independent artists who own their own copyrighted material and are willing to share it with anyone who would care to listen.
The same listener adds, "now time to get serious about revenue streams". This is the as yet unexplored horizon for MTB development Cash flow thus far is non-existent, except for that which continues to be going out on a regular basis to support the bandwidth, software and hardware needs to create and maintain a consistent and reliable program source. It has been known from the beginning that future growth can only come from eventually finding support from whatever market exists around the Tampa Bay Music Scene.
The first half decade of programming has brought a significant escalation in listening experiences beyond the ever growing music library representing the local music scene. Voice tracks are now updated almost daily, with Music News on weekends and numerous artists adding their own voices in introducing songs and recognizing MTB in the process. There is also now a project in the works to begin using the MTB Laptop as a sort of portable radio station, something used for what are normally called remotes in the broadcast community, a term that has a whole new meaning on the world wide web. The system for accomplishing this is now in place, though various technical issues are still being worked out. This prospect is expected to open numerous opportunities for generating revenues to upgrade the site bandwidth capacity, a pre-cursor to attracting a larger audience, and add a dimension to the live show experience never before made available to local musicians, venues, studios, and even home concerts. Another new development is a system of interactive music selection, allowing listeners to vote or chose songs to be heard - or not heard. That feature is expected to be in place by the start of autumn 2009. The possibilities for future development are as far and wide as the imagination.
But first, a little history and background about the development of Music Tampa Bay. For the record, MTB origins go back a lot further than the internet. In fact, in terms of decades, it really got started nearly a half century ago, in a remote area of central Montana. It was there that a career in broadcast radio began, and quickly escalated to one of the most unusual experiences any American radio DJ ever imagined - hooking up with a radio ship sailing out of Miami, heading for the North Sea off the coast of England in 1966. After about a half year or so on something called Swinging Radio England, another rapid change in latitude was experienced, which permitted the still young and relatively inexperienced "presenter" to become part of a group known as "Swingin' Gentlemen" at a radio station known to almost anyone who was alive back then as WLCY, 138 - "Fun Radio - on Great Tampa Bay". The rest, as they say, is history. A lifetime in broadcasting prompted the early development of Music Tampa Bay.
MTB was originally conceived as a prototype for introducing a local programming music format for an over-the-air broadcast station covering the Tampa Bay Area. Whether or not that ever transpires seems to now be of diminished significance in light of an emerging new media that is only beginning to become evident. What was not considered at the outset was the proliferation of mobile hand held devices that can be used for plucking music streaming literally out of the air - just like AM and FM radio has been doing for generations. Tens of thousands of internet stations now streaming audio across the web can be picked up on these devices that might be compared to the transistor radio of the last century. MTB capacity was limited from the start to a modest bandwidth hardwired to bulky desk top and lap top computers. But major phone companies now making the streams accessible to pocket size mobile media, and even the very real likelihood of the development of a universal wireless access for the world wide web, is something else again. This represents something called Reach in broadcasting. MTB may yet have an infinitesimally small share of the local internet radio market - if there is such a thing - but its Reach is expanding exponentially.
So the belief that this project is worth the effort, and expense, continues to be manifest, as is the time spent upgrading play lists, adding new selections and managing an ever growing digital music library, updating and posting live shows on the website, developing new partnerships with musicians and others in the local music community, and keeping an eye on the exploding digital medium.
Now the question is, a posed in the Music Mind Expansion questions raised by one listener in the MTB guestbook, can it attract a sufficient audience to enable the establishment of an income? A profit motive was not, in the outset, a paramount consideration. But the need to find the means for permitting it to achieve some self-sustainability was, and is. The primary factor that can be seen for accomplishing this, is something called ratings.
The audience remains small, but showing unmistakable signs of growing. The number of listeners so far is extremely limited in comparison with over-the-air radio, yet it is constantly seen as growing and "reaching" an ever increasing base. Clearly this is composed largely of artists themselves who listen in to hear their own music and that of other performers with whom they have shared stages or have seen or worked with in some capacity in the local communities. But it can also be fairly well documented now in guestbook entries and email communication, not to mention recent publicity afforded in a cover story on a widely recognized music magazine titled Bay Area Beat, that many more listeners are becoming aware of the project who are, in fact, not musicians, but instead are interested in local bands and emerging talent that represents the music culture of our area. These, of course, are fans and followers, but also families and friends, who have a vested interest in seeing the artistic development succeed.
Beyond the bay, there are quite a few enthusiasts who see a huge future for streaming audio on the world wide web. The most prominent voices in this chorus however differ in their approach from MTB by wide margins. They focus on nationally recognized artists under contract to large corporate recording companies marketed to a national and international audience. They also tend to provide multitudes of streams, with newer ones configured to allow users to play a large role in selecting content. AOL, Pandora, Rhapsody, Paradise, AccuRadio, Live365, Last.fm, and an ever growing chorus of Internet streaming operations seem to represent the dominant business model, and command considerable revenue from subscribers and other sources. The modest approach that MTB employs almost gets lost amid the grandiose schemes that are commanding the lion's share of attention in this field today.
Still, there is a prevailing feeling that local music by local musicians represents a departure from the type programming our friends at the national level are offering, and establishing something new and unique seemed to fit the internet gang's projections about what is most likely to succeed in the new media.
There seems to be a nearly unanimous verdict of eminent doom for the same old - same old traditional style radio programming heard on AM & FM today, though for somewhat different reasons than those behind the MTB model. Broadcast radio is still seen as the primary vehicle for airing the big hits, whether of the current century, or over the preceding 4 or 5 decades of the last. One theory to substantiate this, and offer some insight into where web-play fits into the picture depicts something called a Long Tail. This concept places most commercial music today at one end of the tail which extends like an appendage from the body of traditional, or "terrestrial" radio stations that blanket the country, and indeed the world. It stretches out more or less indefinitely, with infinitely smaller portions of the music spectrum etched out in non-traditional formats that appeal to highly select, or "targeted" audiences. Imagine Russian Folk, African Kettle Drum, Irish Drinking, or Louisiana Coon Hunting music formats for example - not likely to generate enough revenue to pay the electric bill for a 50,000 FM covering large segments of New England. But on the internet, these select and narrowly defined - however eccentric - music formulas have a chance for survival. The rational for this is the world wide reach of the web.
Music Tampa Bay of course is not interested in spreading its magic out around the planet. This platform is intended to appeal only as far east as Lakeland or Winter Haven or Bartow, south to Sarasota or perhaps Port Charlotte & vicinity, north to New Port Richey, Hudson, Spring Hill and Brooksville, and all points in between. Moreover, MTB refuses to be locked into one specific genre or what is so often called "type of music", but rather finds value and appeal in virtually anything that local talent can dream up. Of course there are points for production value, notably arrangements, lyrics and composition, and other factors such as current visibility of the artists in the area in terms of appearances, exposure in other media, recorded output, and other factors, that tend to give some songs greater appeal than others. In the final analysis however, there is little that our small group shares in common with the big guns in Las Vegas, LA, Chicago, New York, London, or Sydney Australia who view the web as a giant money pool, with everyone ready to dive in.
New options for future development have been occurring throughout the early history of this website operation. While a consumer revolution is taking place internet downloads and file swapping (whether legal or not), a new wave of musicians is discovering home brewing, internet collaboration, ever evolving software and computer resources that in many ways negate the necessity of signing long term promotional and recording contracts that were once seen as virtually the only way for a musician to anticipate making a decent living over the course of a lifetime.
Various business models thus can be seen for MTB development, with one in the works that establishes a partnership with one or more Tampa Bay recording studios - and there are quite a few - and artists with decent home recordings to take their creative output to the next level, and provide the means for improving and enhancing original recordings to attain a level of professionalism only the major labels could once provide.
Many songs that are submitted to MTB for web-play consist of basic vocal and rhythm guitar accompaniment, sometimes with simple rhythm tracks and modest additions, that are good quality recordings, but not necessarily what is known as studio quality. There is a need for development of these creations into professional level material - both to enhance the MTB sound, and elevate songwriters and musicians to a listening experience enjoyed by acts under national contract with major producers. The possibility of initiating a mutual promotional agreement with a local studio, with or without separate label associations, is being explored and viewed as a very real possibility for true development.
All this aside, the main focus of MTB has been, is and will be the music and the musicians who make it possible.
Stay tuned.
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2010 Presents new challenges and the promise of a new live studio environment for Saturday night specials like the old platter party in the first year of living on the air, before even Radio England and that brief period when MTB was first conceived, though not yet in embryo stage. All the pieces are ready to assemble - dual operating program schedulers, mixer, mic, using an analogue live announce to overcome digital latency issues, all linker to remote server with virtually unlimited bandwidth capability, at a cost of roughly $2 per listener per month. This project is in need of a sales manager who can help reduce those costs, offering live streaming to major venues and bands looking for an appropriate on-line platform.
With the 5th year of successful net radio programming approaching in March, a lot has come together, including the 700 plus and growing music library, at least a hundred local artist CD collection, recognition in two area wide publications in the past year, and a rekindled past described as "skirting convention", the question remains, can this thing get hooked up to an RF carrier sometime in the next 12 months. It has long been believed the call sign WMTB is available, on AM only. It should be possible to acquire a decent signal for somewhere around a cool million bucks or so. Is there a future in that?
One notion that takes on the characteristics of fantasy is putting a generator & tower on a ship and anchoring out where the gambling boats go and opening up a wireless digital signal for laptops, cell phones, and all portable and stationary devices. It has been done before on another continent. It could happen just off shore from the west coast of Florida - for another cool million, or two.
There is an untold story about the financial collapse and concurrent change in laws in the UK that ended the brief emergence of American top-40 radio in England nearly half a century ago. The historical account so far tells of a flamboyant Texas millionaire breaking off from an investment group backing Radio London and returning to the states to build his own station, and "show 'em" how pirate radio should be done. Funny how it all seemed to be some kind of a game, fighting "Big Ben" and on a whirlwind blitz through Carnaby Street and Picadilly Circus. When all was said and done, the ship was confiscated by the Coast Guard when returning to US waters, its transmitters being sold and the whole thing eventually skuttled and rebuilt for service that continues into the 21st century somewhere in New England or the Great Lakes.
Why was SRE, Swingin Radio England a collasal failure? Is MTB headed for the same fate?
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Piracy on a ship in international waters is a whole different issue in today's RIAA Copyright Infringement post-Napster era with broadcast and the music industry now in battlefield mode over new performance royalty - already in place for all digital media - broadcast radio is calling a tax. The whole debate is being played out in Congress & the Courts. Pirate radio now is playing copyrighted material on the web, without first paying a whole host of licensing agencies. Tax collectors are everywhere. And so are pirates.
The payment of royalties has been, is, and apparently will remain a question mark in the MTB operating mode. Until now, around 90 percent or more of the songs heard are played with direct or indirect permission from the songwriter/performer, nearly always an indie or unsigned, sometimes making a living, or trying to, in music. Sometimes not.
If this website was wired for an audience in the thousands (with an overhead to match) and generating revenues sufficient to begin a co-op pool, or whatever it might be called, for all artists with music in the current playlist. At that time, a business manager (not my wife or anyone in the family) will need to be on the payroll, along with a staff to run the station. With all that, gaining an FM or AM signal in the area would seem feasible. At last check WMTB was still available on the amplitude modulated middle wave band. WLCY lives.
Speaking of piracy and LC, the phrase "Great Tampa Bay" is a rip-off that should be paying rights to use the phrase. At least that was what was known in the 60's & 70's, when FM blew AM Music Radio off the map. It is used frequently and in remembrance of the many fine Swingin' Gentlemen and Ladies who graced the air at what is now Radio Disney, AM 1380, or Radio One Thirty Eight, Fun Radio on Great Tampa Bay. Some sharp lawyer could cash in on this infringement if pursued.
So the plan is to begin setting aside a sort of legal fund - with the very 1st dollar earned - for all the royalty people on the planet who might feel they own a piece of the action by virtue of a licensed song slipping through the playlist from time to time. One did, in fact, when a cover song from an otherwise all original album was inadvertently added to rotation for a few days until the error was realized. No doubt it has happened before, and likely will again, though great care is taken to try to avoid such an infringement.
One suggestion that was also recently turned down, though not before a lot of thought, also raised the royalty question. It was proposed that MTB become the Administrator of an on-line local musician's hall of fame. At first it seemed like a good fit, until the realization that many, if not most such artists would be heavily involved in corporate music America. A hall of fame for indie & unsigned artists is more likely a project for later development, and good luck with the local hall for musicians who've "made it".
What has turned out to be a beautiful discovery from playing non-licensed and/or non-financially-obligated music, is that there is a ton of really excellent stuff out there. More than 200 different songs are in rotation now everyday. Out of these, 99 are heard at least once, many 3 or 4 times or more, everyday over the course of a week. Over the course of a couple of weeks, another collection of songs in the neighborhood of about 400 songs rotate independently from the regular playlist. Several hundred other songs are also in the mix, so that the total number in the MTB active, on-line library is approaching, if not already passed 1,000, all original, all local. And new music continues to come in all the time. It's amazing.
Stay tuned.
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March 6th, 2010 - 5 years to the day since streaming was first successfully accomplished on the world wide web on this website. At the time, there was a fairly rough collection of songs, nearly all of which were obtained through the good graces of a local gentleman who was then operating another web domain known as Reality Snap. He had by that time 3 or 4 hundred decent songs in something he called his mp3 jukebox, which permitted down loads and provided titles and artists names. Eventually an enduring friendship with him would result in trusteeship of the physical library that made up that collection, roughly a hundred or so CDs, many of which have still not been heard in except for a few select tracks, but which may yet make it to the MTB Feature Artist soundstage someday. Problem is lately, too much new material is coming in, with a backlog of unheard new albums since the first of the year, and more waiting. MTB has reached a kind of self-sustaining plateau of unheard programming material that could conceivably continue indefinitely. Nice problem to have.
There has been serious talk of making the project official around the 5 year mark, registering business names, trademarks, logos, and various elements that might be called intellectual property. Actually the whole thing is quite vulnerable to unscrupulous intrusion if there was an unsavory character hiding in the shadows somewhere who might want to disrupt what has become part of the record until now. Incorporating MTB and protecting so-called assets is a virtual certainty in the early stages of the 2nd half-decade of streaming. With that comes all sorts of issues, like royalties, advertising, taxes on earnings, employees at some point to carry on the tradition, etc. That's when things start to get serious.
Anyone who was listening in the first year or two of MTB programming was probably aware, one way or another, of an in-bred goal of creating a cyber-prototype format for broadcast radio. That was the original goal, and remains a viable objective today - except that a lot has happened along the way.
Stay tuned.
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A re-occurring question that comes up in the guestbook on the Contact page asks how are songs ranked on the daily Big Bay 99 playlist? In commercial radio, songs are ranked primarily by sales of singles as compiled by national music services such as Billboard and other weekly publications, including a number like something called the Friday Morning Quarterback that are distributed by subscription directly to radio station program and music directors. There is no direct sales barometer of songs on the local level (though one could be devised and implemented as the popularity of local artists improve), so it has become necessary to devise a method unique to this market and website operations.
Basically songs that are new move up the list, and those that have reached their peak move down. Just when they reach their highest point is somewhat arbitrary and subject to various criteria, some of which are posted on the Playlist page. In essence, songs are evaluated on the basis of what has come to be known as a broadcast quality standard in radio, or what musicians might know as arrangement, composition, creativity, and originality, among other factors. A recording that is made simply by someone strumming a guitar and singing in front of a microphone would generally rank fairly low on the quality scale, while one with a full band produced in a studio would be much higher. Virtually all songs that come into the website are entered into this ranking process at the bottom, and move up the list according to how high they rank on this scale. Accordingly, some songs do not remain in the list for a very long time, but instead are assigned to what might be called a low priority category, one that is only heard once an hour, if at all. Others that clearly are the result of a lot of work on the part of the musicians involve remain in the list longer, and move up accordingly. The actual number on the playlist that a song is assigned to is a relative value, and only serves as an partial indicator as to how long the song has been listed. A song at #99 for example that has just been listed, may move up to somewhere in the 80s or 70s after its first week, then into the 60s or 50s in the 2nd week, depending on the quality standard it represents. This upward movement continues each week until it either reaches a peak, and heads back down the list, or makes it to the Top 10. Determining which songs make it to the Top 10, and which ones don't, is a more or less subjective evaluation process that ultimately comes down to making a rough guess. Most songs actually do get a chance to be voted on by listeners in the Top 10, and are kept there at least 2 weeks before being replaced by others if they don't get a strong showing of votes. The rank of songs in this select group of 10 songs is determined entirely and exclusively by listeners. As long as songs continue to get strong support in the voting, they remain in the this category.
This method for evaluating and ranking songs has evolved over time, and may be expected to continue to be modified as the website grows and matures. Expansion of the Top 10 voting process could be expanded to include the top 40 or 50 songs, or even the entire 99 songs playlist, though it is not yet certain whether listener votes should be the sole criteria. There are some songs by relatively unknown artists for example that deserve special consideration, but which might not be able to compete fairly with artists who have a wide following. Some artists who display exceptional talent but lack the resources to establish and maintain a full band or produce studio quality recordings might also be unfairly eliminated. Changes and revisions to this process thus are slow to evolve, and may never fully be a true measure of appeal or success in the Tampa Bay music community.
Website resources are also a limitation that affect the real value of webplay and rank on published playlists. In the absence of any outside fiscal support, MTB must continue to function within tight limits. Expenditures that already exceed a thousand dollars annually, not to mention the value of labor required for daily and weekly updates, restrict the rate at which improvements may made to on-line systems. If and when advertiser or other outside support is achieved, MTB will continue to fall short of its full potential as representative of the talent already being heard, and what is recognized as a large pool of musicians not yet a part of the music stream or web operations.
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Recently an offer was made to give the MTB website a facelift, a re-design by someone who clearly has some expertise in that area. Previous to that, an artist saw a problem with the old MTB logo that was designed like a big "M" with the initials for Tampa Bay imbedded in the right lower corner. Then he created and sent in what is now the MTB logo, without any question or expectation if it would be used or not. And then there is the guy who recorded a wealth of one-liners, and then on top on that sang and recorded the MTB jingle, which is used at the top of the hour, every hour, now. Wow. A lot of people have grasped what this project is all about and stepped in to make it better, without being asked, or paid, or because they have nothing better to do with their time. They are showing their love for the platform on which their music is being heard, kinda like a week night jam where anyone can step up and join in the music, like adopting a piece of what is being heard now all the time, 24/7/365. This is a quality that was never foreseen or anticipated in the beginning, and it is hoped it will continue to grow and find new ways of expression as the 2nd half of the first decade of streaming begins to pick up momentum.
To paraphrase something heard on public television a lot, thanks to listeners like you.
A non-musician then also recently asked why do it? She said she was glad it is being done, and now listens all the time at work, hearing bands she has seen what appears to be many times, even naming a half dozen or so that are in the MTB lineup.
Why does anyone feel a need to express oneself through a guitar or piano keys or drums or bag pipes? There is no easy answer why, only that it feels like it is something that needs to be done. As has been revealed in various different ways, including the Pirate Radio essay published in the St Pete Times, the origins of MTB go back almost a half century, and evolve through on air music programming in virtually every radio format known until career opportunities emerged in television, followed by retirement after almost 20 years managing network program operations. During this time, the internet sprang to life, and with it the capability of putting one's own radio station on-line.
Moreover the history of the program concept itself is more recent in origin. As a young DJ in the 60s and 70s in and around Tampa Bay and elsewhere, including of course the high seas adventure that took the form of a motion picture in 2009, a kind of ignorance was pretty much universally manifest in virtually all radio stations, that local talent was a waste of time. In that era of course, the only musicians with good technical quality recordings were those who were able to spend significant periods of time in professional recording studios, normally under contract and by signing away one's copyrights and other stipulations. Some local artists could record in local studios and produce some excellent product, but radio stations mostly ignored them. Why, has never fully been understood. But when the idea of creating a radio station in cyber space became possible, a new age in making music by local musicians also had undergone a radical change. Good quality recordings are now everywhere, and there is no more any good reason not to offer them in the public domain. And beyond that, when one listens for any length of time, the question come up, why ever listen to that other crap, ever again? There are tons of absolutely excellent musicians who have top shelf recordings right here at home.
Somebody should put this stuff on radio.
Well, MTB is a rough start, and still basically the equivalent of a one-man-band. But is up and running, and touching lives, and making some people want to get involved and be a part of it, and becoming a pretty fair representation of the level of talent and degree of sophistication the local music community has produced.
Someday, somebody will put this stuff on radio, or big-time, high-power, over-the-air radio. WMTB AM and/or FM, whatever. Stay tuned.