KING FM is a non-profit radio station serving the classical music community. Based in Seattle, KING FM has been streaming its classical music programming for nearly 10
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Abstract
Classic KING FM was the first radio station to stream classical music over the Internet and has successfully streamed its programming for nearly 10 years. Recently, in response to customer demands, KING FM began offering its content in Windows Media Format. This article explains how they did it.
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years. During that time, KING FM offered its content exclusively in RealAudio format. In response to customer demands, however, KING FM decided to offer users a choice by also streaming in Windows Media Format. By adding Windows Media to their list of offerings, KING FM hoped to do the following:
Extend their reach to additional classical music listeners
Control costs
Restore ratings to previous levels, and then surpass them
Build an economic model to generate revenue through advertising or listener support
The primary focus for KING FM is live broadcasting, and it streams its content through an external Content Delivery Network (CDN).
In 2002, KING FM streamed approximately 4.3 to 4.9 terabytes of data per month to nearly 3,000 concurrent listeners. In 2003, streams declined to approximately 2.9 terabytes per month to about 2,100 concurrent users. Most KING FM users listen during office hours, with the number of listeners being highest in universities, hospitals, and government. The average time spent listening is two hours.
Eighty-five percent of the KING FM audience is in the United States, with approximately 24 percent residing in the Pacific Northwest region.
KING FM purchased an encoding computer for the Windows Media implementation and repurposed an existing computer to use as a self-host server. They installed Windows Media Encoder 9 Series on the new computer, and installed Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition, on the self-host server. Because Windows Media Services 9 Series, the streaming media server, is a component of Windows Server 2003, KING FM did not incur any additional cost or licensing fee to get their streaming solution up and running.
Configuration of the encoder and streaming server was very quick. After specifying limits for the number of concurrent connections to allow and opening the appropriate ports on their firewall, KING FM streamed their first Windows Media-based content after fewer than 30 minutes of setup time.
Bryan Lowe, Internet Director of KING FM was impressed.
"I was surprised at how well it worked. No glitches. Stable. Solid. Secure. I was also surprised by the new capabilities of Windows Media 9 Series. The ability to push a playlist and ad pages...exactly what radio broadcasting needs to survive and now grow online."
The final step before taking their content to the public was to add Windows Media Player to their website. Creating a pop-up Player enabled KING FM to apply their own branding and messaging, while also providing links that brought users deeper into the site.
After further study, KING FM determined that it didn't have enough bandwidth to support a self-host solution. As a result, KING FM continues to rely on its CDN for serving content streams. However, all of the encoding is still done in house, and the CDN connects directly to the KING FM encoder to pull the broadcast stream to its network before sending it on to clients.
The number of listeners and page hits has increased considerably since KING FM added Windows Media to its list of offerings. "We have seen an amazing increase in our audience size," reports Lowe.
"We saw a large audience almost instantly when we added Windows Media. Our Web page visits rose from about 10,000 pages a day to more than 85,000 Web page visits a day. Since we have a [pop-up] Player, we expected to see an increase due to the Player alone, but our total website stats have increased for all pages."
KING FM and Microsoft worked together to build a custom solution that would enable KING FM to achieve its goal of generating revenue through advertising or listener support. By using a combination of technologies—including Windows Media Encoder, Windows Media Player, SQL Server 2000, and XML Web Services—KING FM is able to display content that is specific to the music playing at the moment. This content includes title, composer, and interesting facts about the music. A custom encoding application automatically updates the content displayed in the Player each time a new selection of music is played. Additionally, KING FM can deliver dynamic banner ads, all through an HTML page embedded in the Player.
The success of this project has motivated Lowe and his team to pursue more innovative solutions in Internet broadcasting.
"We are working on additional channels of classical music. We also want to implement full capabilities in pushing playlists and ad content to our listeners. Now the Player can include meaningful content for the listener and for our advertisers.
"The new capabilities of Windows Media 9 Series also allow us to make our daily stream a sort of multimedia experience. Ads in our stream will now sync up with logos, links, and text in our Player, and this is a live stream. Great stuff."
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