Third Crypto Station CryptRadio Launching October 1st
Third Crypto Station CryptRadio Launching October 1stWe recently profiled BIT-FM and have covered Chain Radio since before it launched and now another player to the space will be launching October 1st. CryptRadio is going to be going live after a series of successful soft launches and tests and we sat down with Lee the founder of the station to speak about what the future holds for CryptRadio. Mike: With Chain Radio and BIT-FM what is it that makes CryptRadio unique from what others are doing in this radio space? Lee: To understand how we view our service I need to give you some background on myself Lee (founder and on air personality). I come from an extensive sales background working for 14 years in high level sales/marketing I worked with re-sellers to find ways of growing their businesses. The industry I come from is very devoid of forward thinking and risk, it was/is my job to help my clients overcome this in order for them to realize their goals, the second part to my background is I use to be a DJ and have a love for anything music. So here is where the these two backgrounds come together to differentiate what we aim to do. CryptRadio. ca wants to Proactively pull the outside world IN. Our shows and content while always keeping a crypto overtone will also have a very familiar feel to the radio people listen to daily. Our Talk segments wont just focus on the technical aspects of crypto, we will try to discuss real world use of crypto, and the biggest difference is we will invite our listeners to call in LIVE and share their thought on the topics we pose, and even allow the callers to move the discussion in directions they feel are relevant. Mike: Tell us a bit more about the programming that you are running on your station. What about the future? What are some of your plans on providing content for your listeners? Lee: So at the moment we have done 3 soft launches, mostly to test systems, production, and live show recording. Those that tuned in likely heard a kind of mix of talk show/music. We even had one of the I/O coin team dev’s agree to join us live and talk about their new HTML5 wallet which was released the following day. We want to be able to have something for everyone. Our music will range anywhere from Country to hip-hop to rock, we even have a day for amateurВ singers, bands, DJ’s to submit their work to be played on our Open Mic shows. The future depends on how well we are received. Like many this project is something myself and the two other members of my team embarking on to first help spread the word on Crypto and of course we hope that one day we can make it our full-time jobs, so our evolution will depend on how much demand we get from listeners, and how much support we get from potential advertisers and sponsors. Our content will be driven from a number of sources, of course popular music and music trends, community news and the ability to turn that news into discussion our listeners will want to take part in, if the chance arises we would love to work with people around the world attending Crypto gatherings to become sort of on the ground reporters for live events. Mike: What about music licensing? We know that Bit-FM is working to secure licenses to run an Internet radio station and that Chain Radio acquired a license at a significant cost. What does the situation look like for CryptRadio? Lee: Great Question! This is a challenging area because it is very much a chicken or the egg situation. to acquire a license can be a significant cost, however we have worked with some services which offer collective licenses, and the rates to be part of this collective is based on how many hours of air time you produce, as well as revenue you generate, the license covers North America and Canada which we feel will cover our needs. Getting this kind of license is relatively easy but may require some changes to our streaming provider again a relatively simple switch to make. So for now we are working on and expect we should have that sorted before Oct 1st. Mike: What kind of plans are in place to keep the station sustainable? We’ve seen Chain Radio struggling with this as the cost of streaming, licenses, and constant DDOS attacks have beaten them down on a fairly regular basis. Lee: I think as in the case of any project their road ahead is largely the unknown, but we do have a plan which we hope will generate the funds we need for licenses, website production, and all the traditional things like hydro, hardware, rent etc. So at first if you saw our webpage it was basic and one part much like Chain Radio we were asking for donations, while there were a few which helped donations/community advertising funds was clear would not be our main source for funds. So I am going to be drawing on my main skills as a sales professional and actively ask for small to med size business to advertise with us, BUT they must be willing to accept Crypto. What this will do is bring users of Crypto more places to spend their coin, teach new business about the community, but also generate what we feel will be 60%- 80% of the fund we need, the balance would come from sponsors, and we will eventually explore donations again, but the community at the moment as we see it is not really a “giving” one by and large at least not until you can bring value, so we feel it is not our place to ask for free money of the hop. So the good news is we do have some business who have agreed to let us show them how easy it is to accept Bitcoin and would be on board to advertise their goods and services. Mike: The station is launching on October 1st? What sort of things do you have going on for that day? So Oct 1st is the date we have slated to launch, again pending technical or licensing that could be pushed back but I can say things are on track for Oct 1st. Our goal for Oct 1st will be to bring as much interaction opportunities as possible, we have 3 I/O coin give away’s whichВ will largely based on social media interaction LIVE. SO example first tweet on a question to the audience will win, of course we will have some great music played, being a launch we will likely play a bit of everything in segments to give people a feel for what to expect, we even have some open Mic original music by some great local talent. We will have advertisers and sponsor commercials, and Laura our resident newbie will introduce her segment “the newbie zone” which will be focused on new or curious people to Crypto, of course we have more planned which is evolving daily. Mike: What made you interested in doing an online radio station for cryptocurrency? Well I have always had a love for music, and recently a major love of crypto. I also believe there is a big future for crypto or at least the idea of doing business using it. I wanted to find a way to accelerate the process of acceptance by the main stream business community of crypto. Seeing the work of services like Bitpay and other similar companies who are making accepting bitcoin easier, and practical, I was inspired and felt an almost call to action. Radio was something that combines my love of music, and Crypto to that call to action. Radio is a great medium that reaches millions, so what better way to make a run at moving Crypto into a more accepted way of doing business. Mike: What most excites you and your team about cryptocurrency? So the real excitement comes from the possibilities and how much easier doing everything could be using this form of payment. as a sales person one thing I always struggle with is clients who have had challenges finding low-cost ways to accept payments. For example in order for a business to be set up as a payee with major Canadian banks to do online banking the documents and legal red tape is mind-blowing. So Crypto to the rescue….. set up a wallet to accept the Crypto of choice and your set up with “online banking” so to speak. No red tape, to banking fees. So in short what excites us most is how Crypto can, and we believe WILL change the way business is conducted, and how this kind of decentralized currency lets smaller to medium size business grow. Our excitement is really in the real world application we see possible.
