A-Infos (en) Radio Hits The Internet

[MichaelP <papadop@PEAK.ORG>]

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   Radio Hits The Internet's Airwaves
   (02/19/98; 6:58 p.m. EST)
   By Andy Patrizio, TechWeb

   The Internet's greatest promise is its use as a platform for
   viewpoints that might otherwise not be heard through traditional print
   and broadcast media outlets.
   
   One example is the return of defunct Los Angeles radio station KNAC,
   which came back to life on Sunday on the Internet.
   
   KNAC's return gives its disc jockeys a new medium in which to play the
   hard rock and heavy metal that has been absent from the city's
   airwaves for three years and an outlet for fans who feel MTV has
   neglected their favorite genre.
   
   KNAC was a major force in breaking new bands in the hard rock/heavy
   metal genre in the '80s and early '90s, but went off the air in 1995
   after the station was sold to Spanish-language broadcasters.
   
   Operations manager Rob Jones Jr., who has been involved in the Los
   Angeles music scene for years, decided to revive the station as an
   Internet entity because its call letters -- associated with the rise
   of bands such as Guns 'n Roses -- were known around the world. Only
   the Internet could give the station a truly international reach.
   
   "The Internet will be an alternative, competitor, and complement to
   radio stations," said Greg Tapper, an analyst with Giga Information
   Group in Redwood City, Calif. "It represents both opportunity and
   competition. It's very likely you'll see a lot of radio stations
   popping up [on the Internet] in the next year or two."
   
   But KNAC's reincarnation online isn't an easy proposition, as KNAC
   staffers have discovered.
   
   Learning to juggle requests from the station's chat room while
   spinning records hasn't has been easy for KNAC's disc jockeys, some of
   whom hadn't used the Internet before. However, the worst problem
   occurred on the day of the launch. To avoid congestion, KNAC set up
   four reflector sites on the Internet in addition to its own host
   server. But all listeners were kicked to KNAC's host server, which was
   simultaneously taking visitor hits, serving music up to the reflector
   sites and delivering the music.
   
   "We had the bandwidth sucked out of us," said Jones.
   
   And by traditional radio standards, KNAC's audience is quite small.
   The station's website has gotten 7,000 visits in the three days it's
   been on the air.
   
   "By our standards, we've exceeded our expectations," said Jones, who
   has heard from fans from all over the world. "The chat room never
   empties. People live in there." TW
   
   Related Stories:
   
   Acoustician Lobbies For Bandwidth, Champions Net Radio
   
   Internet Revives Defunct Radio Station
   
   Will Internet Users Go For Radio GoGaGa?
   


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