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What is your position about streaming ads?
I like them
3%
 3%  [ 1 ]
I hate them
96%
 96%  [ 30 ]
Total Votes : 31

Author Message
Poland molossus VIP (subscribed member)
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PostPosted: Wed May 14, 2014 12:27 pm   Post subject: Reply with quote


Thank you folks for recent donations! Especially Redjack's one that fills up the donation meter this month!

I hope donations will keep coming. I would be happy to see commercials go away and to learn I'm a fool loosing big part of my admiration for JERIC.
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PostPosted: Wed May 14, 2014 4:06 pm   Post subject: Reply with quote


This is great, really, but I think history shows we can't count on donations to make the budget every month.
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Poland molossus VIP (subscribed member)
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PostPosted: Thu May 15, 2014 8:40 am   Post subject: Reply with quote


molossus wrote:

I would be happy to see commercials go away and to learn I'm a fool loosing big part of my admiration for JERIC.


I'm a fool! \O/
But sometimes it's better to be a fool than to be right Wink
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PostPosted: Thu May 15, 2014 12:50 pm   Post subject: Reply with quote


These are my thoughts, take what you will of them.

When I first heard a progressive commercial I felt betrayed. SST has long been commercial free and has long lured listeners/contributors with this fact. This unannounced change was jarring and out of character. In fact, my first thought was that the site had been hacked or something else. When I heard the same commercial again, I investigated to find that this was something JERIC decided to do because the donation meter wasn't filling up.

I agree it should have been announced with a call for donations. But I also agree that SST and it's sister sites cannot rely on donations for a long term financial plan.

So this is where I fall, most of the listeners do not participate in this site and don't request. So you need to make the VIP package more appealing. Here are my ideas.

-- Make the request waits for non-VIP members longer (don't take it away entirely) but make it something that would seriously make people reconsider that monthly donation.
-- Reduce the rate for the VIP package and make your money on volume, not price. Make the VIP for Yearly members even more discounted than it is.
-- Offer a more tiers. In addition to Monthly and Yearly. Consider quarterly and six month VIP membership packages.
-- Have commercials for non-VIP members. This is not unreasonable. Many people will pay for the privilege of listening commercial free if the price is not to insane.
-- Make the ads regionally based, if you have that option. Or for things that are global.
-- Keep the donation meter, and if/when the donations are met for the month disable ads for the rest of the month. This gives incentive for people to donate.
-- ANNOUNCE ANY CHANGES so those of us who have been long time listeners so that we can help defend you, support you, and not decide that since you don't care about us we won't care about you. I admit my first reaction was to find other options for my listening pleasure, and I do have several other commercial free options, but when I cooled down and read this thread I started thinking. It's super important that the Admins and Proprietors communicate with members. Especially if you are relying on donations and VIPs for your income. I've seen this in my real life jobs, people can feel betrayed very quickly and once you've lost that trust you'll lose them and their money for good.

Those are my thoughts as someone for whom the yearly VIP membership (which I do pay) is a very difficult financial choice.
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PostPosted: Thu May 15, 2014 1:32 pm   Post subject: Reply with quote


How can you do a commercial-free stream, unless its playlist is different? With the extra 30-60 seconds each half hour, or whatever the commercials take up, won't they get out of sync?
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PostPosted: Thu May 15, 2014 1:38 pm   Post subject: Reply with quote


Or instead of commercial, you have station id.
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PostPosted: Thu May 15, 2014 2:35 pm   Post subject: Reply with quote


separate streams with and without ads, if that is possible anyhow, will probably double up license fees which will get us farther from the viewing point than we are now.

Paid membership fees don't need to be high if they have to be payed by all members. We can still have the benefits for people who are willing to donate extra as VIP.
Higher stream quality is an option with that.
It will cut down the number of members for sure, but also cuts away the spam members and will lure free listeners to at least pay the minimum fee.
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PostPosted: Thu May 15, 2014 10:11 pm   Post subject: Reply with quote


Thank you all for taking a few minutes for reading this thread, and sorry for that poll. (I was not sure if someone else felt like me...)

In my opinion there are great ideas:

- different bandwidths for free and vip members
- a single cheap donation to enable requests, a dollar may be
- overlap ads for free listeners (it may be easy if they only broadcast on limited bandwidts, and overlapping solves the sync issue)
- more communicacion from SST
- what about an ad to sugest/remind donations? SST spots are not bad
- update price ranges
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PostPosted: Fri May 16, 2014 7:33 am   Post subject: Reply with quote


Am I the only one who thinks that the commercials aren't that bad?
Not that I enjoy them (haven't yet met anyone who likes them... Laughing ) but if it helps the site earn money: fine.

The only suggestion that I have would be to maybe play one commercial every 15 minutes instead of two in a row every 30 minutes.

I'm none too sure if the stations can continue to be financed solely through VIP memberships and donations.
Sure, SST supposedly has some 35,000 members, but the actual number of active listeners seems to be much, much lower, and the number of people who actually log onto the site and participate is lower still.

Of course I'd prefer an ad-free stream, but I'm simply not sure that will remain possible.
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PostPosted: Fri May 16, 2014 5:13 pm   Post subject: Reply with quote


alien_avatar wrote:
Am I the only one who thinks that the commercials aren't that bad?


Your probably not the only one but I can honestly say that I absolutely hate commercials. I never even watch cable TV because I can't stand the commercials. When I first heard the commercials on SST it was so jarring. They are so out of place, the volume is jacked up way beyond what the music is set to, and not even geared to the listener unless you are in the US.

I think if the commercials are staying, then I'm leaving. And that is hard for me to say as I have been listening for years and often buy monthly VIP memberships.
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PostPosted: Sat May 17, 2014 8:08 am   Post subject: Reply with quote


gadm, I understand that you hate commercials. A lot of people do. That is very easy to say.

But we still need to pay the bills as a community-based radiostation. We are always open for suggestions to get more funding. Do you have an idea?
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PostPosted: Sat May 17, 2014 9:06 am   Post subject: Reply with quote


Caliburn wrote:
gadm, I understand that you hate commercials. A lot of people do. That is very easy to say.

But we still need to pay the bills as a community-based radiostation. We are always open for suggestions to get more funding. Do you have an idea?


I understand that without "paying the bills" there is no radio. However, I think people have come up with some creative ideas to draw money. I think one inherent issue is that very few listerns are willing to pay $60 to get a year long membership. It's just too high when you don't get any improvement in listening quality. Most don't care about requesting songs, they just want to listen to random soundtracks.

I think having the vip membership due much lower like $1 per month but guarentee no commercials would overal generate more revenue as even average listeners may sign up. Currently, the VIP membership dues are way overpriced IMHO. It's essentially in the range of netflix, hulu, XM satelite radio, etc... With all due respect, those services offer much more media content so you really can't price 1 single radio station anywhere near those other streaming services and expect a large amount of people to sign up.

Offering high bitrate streams to subscribers is also another benefit that all paying subscribers would gain.

There have been many good suggestions if you read the comments above.
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PostPosted: Mon May 19, 2014 10:01 am   Post subject: Reply with quote


Do the people who "don't care about requesting songs" donate?

I guess I understand that the site doesn't matter to some people. They don't want to request, they don't want to post. They just seem to want free, streaming media all day long.

I do understand that people were angry that the commercials came on unannounced. And you're right; that seems a bit of a shock, especially to long-loyal listeners. How do we communicate with the people who don't visit the site? I guess we could make an ad that asks for donations. But again, would these people donate?
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PostPosted: Tue May 20, 2014 9:30 am   Post subject: Reply with quote


LadyInque wrote:
Do the people who "don't care about requesting songs" donate?

I guess I understand that the site doesn't matter to some people. They don't want to request, they don't want to post. They just seem to want free, streaming media all day long.

I do understand that people were angry that the commercials came on unannounced. And you're right; that seems a bit of a shock, especially to long-loyal listeners. How do we communicate with the people who don't visit the site? I guess we could make an ad that asks for donations. But again, would these people donate?


One way to communicate with all the listener without commercials is restrict the free streams to 32kbs. This cuts down on the cost for the station, and those wanting better quality would seek out premium streaming for a monthly fee. This has been suggested above and may be a viable way of increasing revenue. I think the monthly fee should be substantially lower for higher bitrates. Maybe $1-2 per month.
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PostPosted: Tue May 20, 2014 4:57 pm   Post subject: Reply with quote


gandm wrote:


One way to communicate with all the listener without commercials is restrict the free streams to 32kbs. This cuts down on the cost for the station, and those wanting better quality would seek out premium streaming for a monthly fee. This has been suggested above and may be a viable way of increasing revenue. I think the monthly fee should be substantially lower for higher bitrates. Maybe $1-2 per month.


Hi guys, i thought i'd chime in being a semi-reg listener since 2010. I completely agree with cutting down the bandwidth for non-paying members. I don't want to generalize, but say a country like China is showing as 4th most listeners on the chart...and they don't even know about the donations or have the means to, then that's alot of bandwidth being eaten up by listeners who should be limited to 32kbs.

I put myself in the category of the listener who just likes having SST on, and often enough enjoys the tracks that my fellow members throw in the queue (yes...even the Friday the 13th tracks Razz ). I find myself only donating or vip'ing once or twice a year...the trick is to get enough of listeners like me to get off the fence. Maybe cheaper vip rates will bring in an overall larger volume of consistant donations? It'll make it easier for people who don't have the chance to log-in regularly to justify paying to upgrade.

There are alot of listening options out there, but the big difference and perhaps it's strength, is SST's community. I really hope this site sticks around Laughing
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