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Beatles Fan Creates His Own Internet Radio Station

If You've Thought About Taking The Plunge, This Might Inspire you.
Ever dream of owning your own Radio station? Pat Matthews did...and now he does. Matthews spent 20 years on the Radio until becoming a TV anchor in Southern California in the late 1980s/early 90s. Then he became a freelance artist doing on-camera and voiceover work. After a chance meeting with some folks at Live365.com at a 1999 convention, he decided he wanted his own Internet Radio station. In September, 2001, he launched "Beatles-A-Rama". Pat recently answered a few questions for me...

Radio Guide: You own your own online Beatles-formatted Radio station, "Beatles-a-Rama". Did you create it more for a love of their music OR for an interest in Radio?

Pat: Actually, a little of both! My background is radio, my passion is collecting Beatles "stuff". I wanted to tell the story of The Beatles the best way I know how-through my Internet Station.

Radio Guide: What was the hardest aspect of creating your own station?

Pat: Sticking to what I perceive as the dumb rules that ONLY pertain to Internet Radio. All the restrictions of frequency of Artists airplay and the like. The biggest challenge has been to appease the hard core Beatles fans who don't care for Wings, for instance. Try selling them on Tom Jones singing Hey Jude. It's tough, but I love the intricacies involved!

Radio Guide: What does it cost you each month? How do you offset that?

Pat: It costs me as a Founding broadcaster around 900 bucks a year (paid in advance) for the best package Live365 currently offers! Haven’t been able to offset it so far. Waiting for Live365 to offer a variation on their Professional Package (which costs around $500/month) to allow me to sell a few ads to make up the costs.

Radio Guide: Any idea how many people listen each week?

Pat: Live365 Stats software allows me to tell how many people listen in each day-part! To answer your question specifically, close to 20,000 people listen in a week.

Radio Guide: How much time each week do you put in maintaining it?

Pat: Around 10 hours per week.

Radio Guide: What was the biggest surprise about creating your own Radio station?

Pat: Learning about the "rules" the hard way - no more than 4 songs by the same artist(s) in 3 hours, no more than 4 cuts from the same CD in a three hour period, no more than TWO songs back-to-back by the same artist(s), etc. When I first launched Beatles-A-Rama, I played Beatles music exclusively. I came home one day (4 days into the format) to find my station shut down!!! Without warning! They gave me 48 hours to figure it out before saying "bye-bye" to Pat!

Radio Guide: There are other Beatles-formatted online stations. What makes yours stand out?

Pat: I think with the interviews, special programming (Beatles On The Beeb & Behind the Scenes series), covers, Beatlesque (sound-alikes), Apple Family cuts, etc. Beatles-A-Rama!!! is a pretty rare bird!Plus, we're about to launch a new daily morning program called "The Early Beatles at 8"...so spread the word!

Radio Guide: Is there anything you wanted to mention I neglected to bring up?

Pat: Just to say that I think what you're doing is great! The RIAA seems to want to kill Internet Radio before it really gets going, your site seems to give it the boost it needs!

20.08.03

 

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