Web stations make airwaves

Radio shows on the web are usually produced like any other show 8212; recorded, mixed, and then converted from the usual DAT Digital Audio Tape format to MP3. But the intermediary conversion had one more step, that of converting from DAT to Wave format. This proved a very time-consuming process during the making of gslot.com. 8220;It nearly doubled the time. The whole process would take 10-12 hours. I decided we had to find a more time-effective method,8221; says Siddharth Kannan, 21-year-old head honcho of Siddharth Kannan Productions Ltd that produced the radio limb of gslot.com.

During a trip to Dubai, Kannan found a software that would reduce the time by half. After loading the software, the songs are taken onto the computer. The software is such that even the mixing can be directly done on computer. This takes hardly an hour and a half. Thus, instead of going through the DAT-Wave Format-MP3 way, the DAT step can be skipped. And conversion from the Wave format to MP3 hardly takes time.

The voice-overs of the RJs that occupy 6-7 minutes in a one-hour programme too come directly on the Wave format. This is where gslot scored a point, being able to provide live radio jockeying. Gslot for the moment has an array of romantic, request and pre-recorded dial-in shows, but a live dial-in is yet to come. 8220;In another one week, definitely,8221; asserts Nauzad Kapadia, the technical brain behind gslot. He adds, 8220;We have not begun a live dial-in because the site is too young to face technical problems at this stage.8221; A live one, according to Kapadia, would mean taking help from Encoder, an hardware that can decode sound waves from telephone. Kapadia is also assisted by Window Media Services, an application that eases radio procedures.

However, there are legalities involved. Web radio is yet to be completely legalised in India, and radio stations hosted by Tom, Dick and Harry are all but illegal. A net radio station can only be legalised when it obtains a licence from the Indian Performing Rights Society IPRS Ltd or the Phonographic Performing Licence PPL. And there are just 23 legal internet radio stations in India.

The IPRS too has granted permission only to play Indian numbers. Gslot for example chooses 300 songs, which they have to regulate for a day, through a whole month. To play these songs, the site has to pay IPRS Rs 5 and Rs 2.50 toward licence fees for public performance and licence fees for reproduction respectively. The fees are charged per channel, choice per day, per song. It thus amounts to a minimum of Rs 8,25,250 per annum for 300 songs at least. Though licence fees for public performance decrease with an increasing number of songs, fees for reproduction remain the same. The amount collected is then distributed between the music composer, song writer and publisher mostly music companies like Magnasound, HMV etc in a 30-20-50 ratio as royalty.

But with the arrival of a zillion web radio stations, music companies are feeling increasingly miffed as their revenue is gnawed into. 8220;The net has worldwide reach, but our traditional marketing techniques do not reach that far. Our extra market is lost because of illegal music distribution. Also, since more people listen to our albums on the net, our shelf sales go down,8221; complains Sudhir Upadhyay, Head-Internet, Magnasound Ltd. Magnasound has thus apparently opened an Internet division, wherein web stations approach them with requests of obtaining their albums for reviews and interviewing their artistes. 8220;We charge them on the basis of what use it8217;s going to be put to and whether the numbers taken are for streamline purposes where the listener can only listen to the track or downloadable purposes. We charge more for the latter,8221; he says. They have also invited delegates from Royal Canadian Mountain Police RCMP to exchange piracy prevention techniques.

The 39-year-old IPRS Ltd has affiliations with over 160 countries and gets music companies in India revenue by keeping a tab on their tracks and albums. 8220;It is virtually impossible to catch illegal web stations,8221; feels Ali.