Webcast Radio - A Historical Perspective
Webcast radio, popularly known as Internet radio, is the streaming of audio over the Internet to anyone who can access it. Webcast radio has the advantage that it can be accessed from anywhere and anytime. Webcast radio can even be accessed using a cell phone capable of GPRS or EDGE and other such advanced packet data communication technologies over the wireless. The receiver device does not need a radio tuner since the transmission is generally done in the digital format.
Webcast radio runs on a client-server model. There is a streaming server which acts like the broadcast station of a normal radio channel. The webcast radio server takes audio files and gets them encapsulated into TCP-IP data packets, which are then forwarded to the clients. The client is software, which connects to the webcast radio server and receives data packets from the webcast radio server, gets it decapsulated and processes the output signal for the user to listen.
When we delve into the history of webcast radio, we see that in 1993, Carl Malamud utilized the MBONE technology to deploy the first webcast radio station. This was soon followed by the Screenprinters Radio from Austin Arts BBS. This was the first specialized webcast radio as it focused on screenprinters.
The first conventional radio station, which started a webcast radio service was WXYC of North Carolina. It started its webcast radio service in November 1994. This was done by connecting an FM radio to a computer, which acted as the rudimentary streaming server. In the same year, the Voice of America went the webcast radio way, and became the first news broadcasting organization to do so. The first continuous live webcast radio signal was transmitted over the Internet by KJHK from Kansas in December 1994. It was only in 1995 that the first internet only webcast radio was started. This was done by Radio HK. It was the first webcast radio which aired music from indie bands. Thus, Radio HK was able to avoid the coming onslaught of the US Copyright Royalty Board which would threaten the very existence of webcast radio in a decade's time. In the meantime, KPIG had also come up with its own live webcast radio service. It was one of the first services to move to the RealAudio format, which subsequently went on to become a pioneer of streaming media. Webcast radio was into its development strides for the next decade or so, but in 2007, Webcast radio is facing a great dilemma. In March 2007, the US Copyright Royalty Board declared that a rate increase in royalties to artists had been approved. Efforts are on to modify the decision as it puts considerable load on webcast radio in its current business model.
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