Radio4all.net

Last updated
A-Infos Radio Project
A-infos-logo.jpg
Type of site
archive
Available inEnglish
OwnerNorthern California Public Broadcasting
URL radio4all.net
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional
LaunchedOctober 1996;24 years ago (1996-10)
Current statusActive
Content license
Non-commercial

The A-Infos Radio Project was formed in October 1996 by Lyn Gerry and other grassroots broadcasters, free radio journalists and cyber-activists to provide the means to share radio programs via the Internet. Programs are typically submitted from "Independent or Alternative media", which refers to a form of media that is free of influence by government or corporate interests (i.e. "mainstream media."). Anyone may upload programs and the content is posted to the web page immediately.

Contents

Origins

The A-Infos audio internet archive began in response to a reorganisation of the Pacifica radio station that eliminated many of its more controversial programmers. [1] An interview with Lyn Gerry reports that the original intention of the project was "to create a “wire service” of sorts where radio producers can source other producer's material in a wide process of collaboration." It may have been the first website to allow free upload and download of audio files, a deliberately created free alternative to the concentration of corporate media outlets and perspectives. [2] The site never made any distinction between downloads to radio stations and downloads for personal listening, which from 2004 came to be known as podcasts.

Operations

Radio4all accepts donations from its users and has never carried advertising or received corporate sponsorship. Radio4All.net is operated exclusively by volunteers on an occasional basis, many of whom have never met in person, but who communicate through a mailing list. Lyn Gerry has stated that the decision not to censor any material was mainly pragmatic. [3] Northern California Public Broadcasting was a nonprofit formed in 1990 to start a radio station in northern California but this didn't happen, instead it became an engineering support project that in 2019 adopted radio4all, with the same engineers who had maintained the site from the late 1990s. Operating expenses are met by voluntary user contributions.

Contents

The A-Infos Radio Project was the first grassroots media project of its kind on the internet to allow free upload and download of programs, and has attracted a wide variety of audio material. The focus remains on public domain radio programmes from various perspectives and often of an alternative political nature. Programs address both local and global issues and perspectives vary substantially, but the most often included are environmentalism, socialism, humanitarianism and anarchism.

Beginning in the late 1990s using dial up modem connections talented program producers and micro-radio stations began exchanging radio programming segments using radio4all.net as an open audio library. Lyn (Lyn Gerry) attended the N.A.B. 2000 counter convention in San Francisco CA Radio Show #31 and presented this concept to the then hopeful Low Power FM station applicants who were awaiting FCC licensing of this new type of Local Non-Corporate radio station service. In a few years more than 500 LPFM stations were licensed and began broadcasting and creating content and sharing it with other like-minded stations across North America and worldwide.[ citation needed ] Radio4all.net ran as a free service worked well for the no-budget LPFM stations springing up across the country (WSCA, WRIR, WCOM, KNFS, KQRP, KRFP, KRFP-LP).

In December 2016 the archive reached 90,000 uploads from over 5,000 producers, of which around 68,000 were still available for download. As a 100% non-commercial operation, it relies on donations. The site has occasional outages and has occasionally limited download speed. On May 14, 2012 the site suffered an outage due to late payment of domain renewal charges, but was soon restored. The site functions autonomously without human intervention or moderation; anyone can upload or download programs. [4] [5]

Several long running syndicated radio shows such as Deconstructing Dinner, TUC Radio, If You Love This Planet and Lyn Gerry's own Unwelcome Guests have used the site for hosting their archives. [6] [7] [8]

See also

Related Research Articles

RealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music. It can also be used as a streaming audio format, that is played at the same time as it is downloaded. In the past, many internet radio stations used RealAudio to stream their programming over the internet in real time. In recent years, however, the format has become less common and has given way to more popular audio formats. RealAudio was heavily used by the BBC websites until 2009, though it was discontinued due to its declining use. BBC World Service, the last of the BBC websites to use RealAudio, discontinued its use in March 2011.

Pacifica Foundation is an American non-profit organization that owns five independently operated, non-commercial, listener-supported radio stations known for their progressive/liberal political orientation. Its national headquarters adjoins station KPFK in Los Angeles, California.

Low-power broadcasting Type of broadcasting station

Low-power broadcasting is broadcasting by a broadcast station at a low electric power to a smaller service area than "full power" stations within the same region. It is often distinguished from "micropower broadcasting" and broadcast translators. LPAM, LPFM and LPTV are in various levels of use across the world, varying widely based on the laws and their enforcement.

SHOUTcast DNAS is cross-platform proprietary software for streaming media over the Internet. The software, developed by Nullsoft, is available free of charge. It allows digital audio content, primarily in MP3 or High-Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding format, to be broadcast to and from media player software, enabling the creation of Internet radio "stations".

Podcast Type of digital media

A podcast is an episodic series of spoken word digital audio files that a user can download to a personal device for easy listening. Streaming applications and podcasting services provide a convenient and integrated way to manage a personal consumption queue across many podcast sources and playback devices.

Google Video Free video hosting service from Google

Google Video was a free video hosting service from Google, similar to YouTube, that allowed video clips to be hosted on Google servers and embedded on to other websites. This allowed websites to host videos remotely without running into bandwidth or storage-capacity issues.

The Prometheus Radio Project is a non-profit advocacy and community organizing group with a mission to resist corporate media consolidation and radio homogenization in the United States. Founded in 1998 by a small group of radio activists in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Prometheus has participated in the community radio movement by providing technical training, helping marginalized communities gain access to affordable media outlets, and creating a network of low power community radio stations. A lot of Prometheus' efforts have focused on legal advocacy for low-power FM (LPFM) stations.

WRFN-LP is a community LPFM non-commercial radio station in Nashville, Tennessee. It operates at a frequency of 107.1 MHz and is branded as Radio Free Nashville. The station features a mix of music, talk and public affairs programming, almost all with a decidedly liberal or leftist political perspective largely not found on other area media outlets.

SoundClick is a music-based social community. Songs can be streamed, downloaded in MP3 format, sold through the store, or licensed to others. SoundClick compiles daily charts for various genres, based on undisclosed factors. The social-network offers profile pages with friends networking, photo, video, blogs, and user stations.

Podcasting, previously known as "audioblogging", has its roots dating back to the 1980s. With the advent of broadband Internet access and portable digital audio playback devices such as the iPod, podcasting began to catch hold in late 2004. Today there are more than 115,000 English-language podcasts available on the Internet, and dozens of websites available for distribution at little or no cost to the producer or listener.

Z Rock was a nationally syndicated radio network based in Dallas, Texas, United States that, from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s, played heavy metal and hard rock music. The format was one of several 24-hour satellite-delivered music formats offered by the pioneering Satellite Music Network. Z Rock debuted on Labor Day in 1986 with WZRC in Chicago as its first affiliate. During its early days, Z Rock drew attention for playing unedited, explicit versions of songs. In March 1990, Z Rock was nominated for the Billboard Awards, the only time a full-time hard rock/metal programming service has ever been so honored in the history of Billboard magazine. After several changes in personnel and programming direction, the network was discontinued on December 31, 1996.

WHAV-LP Radio station in Haverhill, Massachusetts

WHAV-LP – branded 97.9 WHAV – is a non-commercial low-power radio station licensed to serve Haverhill, Massachusetts. Owned by Public Media of New England, Inc., WHAV-LP services the immediate Merrimack Valley and considers itself the successor station to the original WHAV, also licensed to Haverhill, and transmits from WHAV's original 1947 transmitter site; however, the original WHAV continues operations to this day as WCCM. Besides a standard analog transmission, WHAV-LP's audio is also carried, in part, by a number of public, educational, and government access (PEG) cable television stations, and is available online.

KBRP-LP Radio station in Bisbee, Arizona

KBRP-LP is a community-oriented radio station licensed to serve Bisbee, Arizona and all of Cochise County. The station is owned by Bisbee Radio Project Inc. It airs a Variety format. The station derives some of its programming from Pacifica Radio.

KRFP is a community radio station licensed to Moscow, Idaho, United States. The station is owned by Radio Free Moscow, Inc.

WXOJ-LP Radio station in Northampton, Massachusetts

WXOJ-LP is a non-profit, independent community radio station licensed to serve Northampton, Massachusetts as well as the central Pioneer Valley region. The station was first licensed to Foundation For Media Education Inc. until April 2010 when it was transferred to Valley Free Radio, inc. It airs a Public Radio format on its FM radio frequency, as well as through a live streaming service on its website. WXOJ is known as the original broadcast station of the nationally syndicated radio and television program The David Pakman Show and the nationally syndicated radio program "Madness Radio," and was the home of a popular current-events program hosted by then-business owner and current Northampton City Council member Bill Dwight. The station also hosts locally produced programming at its main studios in the village of Florence, Massachusetts, such as The Enviro Show, Occupy the Airwaves, Farm to Fork, Bread & Roses, The Warm Heart of Africa, Poison Ivy of the Mind, Press Start to Continue and more. As an affiliate, VFR airs other local and national content from the Pacifica Radio Network.

KSKQ is a non-member project owned exclusively by the Multicultural Association of Southern Oregon (MCASO) as a non-commercial educational (NCE) community FM radio station licensed by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to the MCASO in Ashland, Oregon, United States. Originally a low power LPFM station, it was upgraded to a full-power NCE station in June 2011. Its studio is located in Ashland. The original transmitter was just southeast of the city, but has now been dismantled in favor of a better site on Table Mountain. KSKQ has been streaming locally produced and nationally syndicated programming over the Internet since 2005. In 2007, it also began broadcasting over the airwaves at 94.9 FM.

NFL Game Pass is a subscription based audio and video service which allows users to hear and watch live and archived National Football League (NFL) games via an Internet connection. For users in North America, only out-of-market preseason games can be viewed live; full replays of all the games become available on demand after their original live broadcasts end. Live preseason, regular season, and postseason games are available to international users.

WZWK-LP is an oldies/beach music radio station licensed to Greenville, South Carolina, and serving the entire Greenville County region. It is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to broadcast at 101.5 MHz with an FCC authorized ERP of 100 watts. The station goes by the name "Oldies Radio Kool-FM"

References

  1. ↑ "Listserv forms Backbone of National Free Radio Network" . Retrieved 2007-06-06.
  2. ↑ Thesis paper
  3. ↑ MP3 Interview Skidmark Bob interviews Lyn Gerry about A-Infos Radio Project
  4. ↑ "The Radio4all contributor index" . Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  5. ↑ "Radio4All coverpage" . Retrieved 31 July 2015.
  6. ↑ "TUC file archive" . Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  7. ↑ "Deconstructing Dinner archive" . Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  8. ↑ "Unwelcome Guests archive" . Retrieved 31 March 2013.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.