Radio Station - Updated 2/5/2015

One or two people have asked me what the hell is going on with the radio station. Where is it? Why is the forum section empty? When is it getting back on the air?

Well the honest answers to all these questions are as follows:

1) It's at the Port. Shiny, New, and slowly becoming covered in cobwebs.
2) Because the Station is currently offline.
3) I don't know.

Now the why, is of course a load of shit. I'll warn you I'm not exactly clear on all the details; just the gist. I hardly have the patience to sit and read hours of boring Financial Times rhubarb about business mergers etc. So this will be fucked. Troll me and I'll block your IP from the forum, cause I'm in a bad mood.

Several months ago, AOL was looking to do away with Shoutcast and Winamp. There was talk that the services might be acquired by Microsoft. Microsoft has a history of taking such awesome ideas like Shoutcast and Winamp (both Free services) and fucking them up beyond all recognition in the name of Corporate Greed. Translation: No one knew if winamp and shoutcast would die, or survive in some dumbass, 50-dollar-a-month-subscription-and-only-able-to-play-music-you-buy-from-the-Windows-Media-Player-Store form.

(Details on what actually happened can be found here (@PCWorld).

Why does this matter?

Shoutcast is the service that is used as the Radio server. If FKA is a station, Shoutcast is the infrastructure that makes it possible.
Winamp is the player that is used by the majority of talent (here, on DarkPlay, on Dragon's Lair, etc) as a broadcast medium - line recordings, music, the lot. (STFU about SAM or whatever. I am NOT dropping $500 for a hobby, and i don't expect any DJs to either.)

Is it all coming together now?

Winamp's fate, Shoutcast's fate... both were unknown. Result: Everyone expected a shutdown, or murky period followed by radical, unpleasant changes. Therefore, no show. Whats the point in signing up for something (as a DJ) or paying money for something (as a Station owner) if it's not going to be there in a month or so? How did we even know whether we'd still be able to launch our own little station without being some bloated, corporate entity?

... In Conclusion...

Winamp has survived.
Shoutcast has.... changed.

A simple look at the Shoutcast page will reveal a whooooooooole bunch of radio stations to listen to...

... No option to start a station on Shoutcast.com (like there was before). Google yields no help.

Therefore it's reasonable to assume that as of right now, there is no chance that FKA will relaunch.

HOWEVER...

The forum stays where it is. Because finding that Shoutcast suddenly reappears properly and then having to rebuild the whole damn thing would be annoying.

So that's it. For those of you who skipped this whole story, here's your takeaways:

1) We thought Internet Radio was doomed.
2) Therefore no talent signed up.
3) Winamp is alive, shoutcast is fucked over but also alive.
4) No FKA for the immediate future.
5) Want more detail? READ THE WHOLE FUCKING ARTICLE, YOU DICK.

End Rant.-

Avast! There has been an update regarding the Radio Station*.

*Remember, I said it would be called that? No? Read the first post above. Go on. I'll wait.

Before I launch into it, I'd like to point your attention to this post. It explains a little about why this post is here, but the rest of me isn't (i.e. Diablo, Yahoo, Facebook and such).

Enough excuses. Time to tell you about the Radio updates. Some significant advances have been made.

The Search for a Hosting Service has begun.:

The Website is now under construction!:

Also... a few questions that need answering:

So... does this mean the Station is coming back for certain?

No. However, this post is me communicating to you that I have not given up on it and am in fact still researching it. Think of this as the radio-station equivalent of Hollywood's Development Hell.

When can we expect Auditions to be posted for DJs?

Questions like this, including "When's it launching", "Who's in the lineup", "What's being played" etc won't be addressed until the all important question of "Is it coming?" is finally answered. Stay tuned.

Can I visit the Under-Construction website? Will you give me the address privately? I promise not to share.
No, no, and no. Even if you did visit it, all you'd see is a big blank page going "Under Construction. Sod off, you nosy little shit."

Who's running the station? Does xx or yy have a hand in it? If they do, I'm not listening ever.

For the first part of this, I'll refer you to the answer about Auditions, above. For the rest... well that's your choice / loss. I really don't care.

Are you really going to be using that paid-air-time model you mentioned?!

We'll see. Maybe yes, maybe no. Again, existence has to be determined first. And i'm still just as poor as before.

More news! I decided that I couldn't be bothered with stretching things out for months... when I'm looking for news of a movie I REALLY want to see, the thing I hate most is when the "latest" news update is over a year old. GRR.

So even though there's not much to add, I'm posting this!

In short, work has been going well. Most notably, I'm proud to announce the successful test broadcast of our Station server! This all-important infrastructure piece is what makes the radio station possible in the first place.

Now, you'll undoubtedly scream, "When is it going live?!"

That remains to be seen for now, and I'm not even giving rough dates because I hate deadlines. However I also don't like leaving people in the dark. So instead, here's a list of stuff we still need to do before it becomes a "Soon" Thing:

• Get the documentation in place (e.g. the Dj Manual and such)
  
• Set up the Staff forum for DJs and Management to use to communicate.
  
• Update THIS forum to prepare for the new station to open.
  
• Finish construction on the website and associated rhubarb.
  
• Audition talent and assign Time Slots.
  
• Name the damn thing. (This may be dealt with in Publicity).
  
• Publicity and buildup announcement of first Shows.
  
• Recording of Promos etc
  
• Launch!
  

As you can see, there is a lot of work and testing still to do. We are NOT ready for auditions yet so PLEASE do not bug me about them! When audition time comes, I'll be boasting about it everywhere and posting more details here.

In the mean time, sit tight, and thanks for your Patience.

So it's been a while since we've last posted an update about the Radio station. And I WISH i had a lot more good than bad news.

The bad news is, the public presence of the station - i.e. the website - has hit a snag. Our webhost has pulled the rug out from under our feet so that side of it won't be seeing light until an alternative can (hopefully) be arranged.

On the upside, the DJ manual is now complete and the infrastructure, much like the manual, is the same. At this point the only hardware work left to be done other than the website is a support forum. Which might well just take the form of an extra few bits and pieces on THIS forum, albeit only viewable by a select few people.

Either way, I'll try to post more as progress is made.

Cheerio!
Adam

Well... it's been five months. And I'm sure you all dreaded this, but saw it coming anyway.

The Radio station project is officially terminated. I have had zero time to work on it, and all things considered, I had zero time to do a show since starting college anyway.

There's other reasons... but I won't bore you with them.

I will say this: Don't expect another attempt at reviving the station. Two failures are enough. It's just not going to work.

IC speaking... Xed signed the order for the demolition of the studio and hardware last night. OOCly, I removed the rest of the forum features pertinent to the radio station this morning.

Thank you, if you ever showed any interest in this project.