Could Independent Radio and TV Stations Become A worldwide Indie Broadcasting Network (Part 1)

I first encountered the Future of Music Coalition ( http://futureofmusic.org/ ) the other day when I wrangled press credentials to attend their upcoming Future of Music Summit in Washington DC Oct 4-6. I'm pretty hyped about that as there will be some major players in the music industry in attendance and it will give me a firsthand look at the directions that the industry intends to take in the future. Thanks to Scott Macaulay (Editor) and Filmmaker Magazine for setting it up for me
( http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/ ).

In the video above The Indigo Girls talk about why they support community radio. When I read this story I started thinking about the importance of having these kind of small, local broadcasters. The Indigo Girls talk about how these stations gave them some of their first exposure as a band and it does seem to be a relatively untapped avenue by which indie music can get mainstream broadcast exposure (ie; outside the web).

One thought led to another and before you know it I had a full fledged plan concocted to rule the indie music world. That is just the way my mind works, I come across a subject and if it catches my interest I end up thinking about ways to improve it or make use of it in some larger way. In this case I think there are a lot of opportunities to make use of this nearly forgotten resource and I figured I would take the time to put my line of thought out there via this story and see if anyone agrees with me.

First off, think about the market potential, there are thousands of small, low power broadcast stations out there pretty much worldwide on AM and FM radio bands as well as shortwave and TV. Individually their reach is very small but as a whole they represent a broadcasting network that covers the entire world.

I started reading up on low power broadcasting on the FCC website and it seems that such stations are not that hard to set up and are free to broadcast whatever they want, including commercial broadcasts. If the power level used for the broadcast is low enough you don't even need to get a license (please read the rules before you try setting up your own station).

That opens up a world of possibilities. My first thought was that anyone could set up their own little radio station in conjunction with their online account on sites like blip.fm or grooveshark and broadcast to their neighborhood. That would be kinda cool and a low power transmitter doesn't cost very much so someone could get rich selling that system (suggestion: iRadio....hehe).

There are of course legalities involving music and what you can play over the airwaves without violating someones right to get paid. With that in mind I read an intro to how music royalties work ( http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/music-royalties.htm ) in order to see if indie music could be played on indie radio/tv stations. From what I read on that topic, combined with what I was reading yesterday about the Creative Commons License
( http://creativecommons.org/ ) it seems that the answer is a qualified yes.

In order for it to work the artist/band would ideally be the writer/composer/performer of the song and license it via Creative Commons giving up mechanical rights to the material permitting it to have unlimited radio/TV airplay for free. That really isn't that different that what we have now in the digital world where pretty much every band out there allows you to stream their music on your site and nothing stops you from making money from advertisemants on the site you stream the music through. In both cases the bands make money from CD sales, mp3 sales, band merchandise and live shows so it is a win/win for both the artists and the broadcaster/streamer. The artist gets exposure to a wider audience and the broadcaster/streamer gets content for their site/station which allows them to earn money via local advertising.

End Part 1, jump to part 2: http://current.com/items/90893661_community-broadcasting-and-the-indie-world