JavaScript Workshop » Creating an Internet Radio Talk Show

Recently, I was given the responsibility at my current employer to create an internet radio show. This was of course based upon my vast experience in radio engineering and broadcasting which mainly consisted of listening to Howard Stern for years.

After hours of online research and calling a few vendors, I was able to purchase and setup the equipment, work with an online service provider to stream the live feed, and allow the radio show to do remotes as well.

The specific requirements for the radio show I created are probably a little different than what you would need for individual internet podcasting (with telephone interview callers), but this will give you an idea of what would ideally be required.

Internet Radio Show Requirements

1. Allow up to six 'personalities' to speak on microphones
2. Ability to play sound effects and/or pre-recorded commercials
3. Ability for listeners to call into the show
4. Stream the show 'live' on the internet on a web page
5. Enable the show to go on remote.

Equipment

Mixer: This is the brain of the radio show. All the equipment gets plugged into this device, for example, the microphone, headphones, external audio, etc. The AudioArts (a division of Wheatstone), Air 1 is a low end, simple "broadcast console". It only has two microphone inputs so I had to purchase two dual microphone pre-amps to allow the four other microphones to have the same levels as the original two.

Microphone Preamplifier: These boost the signal to a standard line level; which all recorders can capture. So I used two dual ones to raise the levels of the other microphones plugged directly into the broadcast console for a total of six microphones.

Headphone Amplifier: These raise the volume and clarity of the individual headphones and allow for multiple headphones to be used at once. I purchased a six-input amplifier that was plugged into the master headphone input of the broadcast console. This allowed for six headphones for the six microphones.

Phone Hybrid: To allow listeners to call into your radio show you need some sort of phone hybrid. This is used to connect a telephone line to the studio audio circuit. A common supplier for this equipment is from Telos Systems. I purchased the One-x-Six Talk Show System which allows up to six callers to be sent through. You need one phone number and your telephone engineer can setup a phone trunk for the multiple calls to find the next available line.

Microphone: A good quality microphone is crucial for radio broadcasting so I purchased six Shure microphones.

Audio Interface: Broadcasting over the internet requires a good quality audio interface (computer sound card) to receive the input from the broadcast console. I purchased the M-Audio Fast Track Ultra which uses a USB connection to the computer that will encode the audio feed.

Headset: For remotes, you normally use a headphone/microphone headset. I purchased six Beyer DT290 units for that.

Audio Codec device: Nowadays, doing a remote for a radio show involves using an audio codec device that can transfer the analog audio signal of the broadcaster's voice to digital and back to the studio to record and/or stream it. This device can transfer the signal over standard POTS (analog telephone line), DSL, Cable, Wi-fi or even 3G cellular. This would require two units to process the digital signal (at remote and in studio).

So if you wanted to transfer your signal over the internet, the device would need an IP codec; to transfer over a POTS line, it would require a POTS codec, etc. There are devices now that have many of these codec's built-in like the portable Comrex ACCESS.

Our radio show's requirements for remotes was not dependant on the quality as much as the cost and we only were doing a few a year so we used an older analog equipment for that.

Laptop: Since the radio show needed funny sound effects and to be able to play pre-recorded commercials, a laptop was needed (an iPod could possibly have been used) which had all the files installed and ready to go. The problem I encountered was that I needed to find software that would play each sound individually as opposed to a playlist with all of them (i.e. iTunes).

I found a little program called Sound Byte that can be programmed with multiple 'tracks' with each sound file attached to a unique button to play instantly. The laptop was also plugged directly into the broadcast console.

Live Internet Streaming

The last step was to stream the audio feed to our company web site. I did not have the time to setup our own streaming server (or knew how to anyways) so I used Onstream Media, which is one of the larger online service providers of live and on-demand Internet video and audio. We just had to give them the IP address of the audio file that I was encoding with Windows Media Encoder and they handled the rest.

The company gave me a url of the 'live' audio feed (.wma) and I used an embedded instance of Windows Media Player for visitors to hear it. WMP is not the perfect solution because of some discrepancies with non-IE web browsers, but it was sufficient for the time being.

Many radio stations use a flash interface for their web audience to listen to live shows. You would have to encode the audio with Flash Media Encoder, and use a custom Flash audio player. Onstream Media would also provides Flash Media servers for audio streaming as well.

Post Production

For post production of the audio after streaming (editing or format conversion), I use Adobe Audition. Though there are freeware alternatives such as Audacity that could be used as well.

Running the Radio Show

Apart from the 'live' personalities, we needed one person to run the audio console to adjust the levels and be in charge of the sound effects and commercials. Another person was needed to start the encoding/streaming of the audio as well as screen the phone calls. Real radio stations have many people behind the scenes, but we are doing it with two people since it is only a 30-minute weekly show with limited viewership.

Guess who has to answer/screen the phone calls? ugh...

Cost

Here is the price quote from the vendor I used for most of the equipment to give you an idea of the costs involved.