Thank you William for letting us share in your process, concerns and
goals. It positively adds to the human curated vibe. In trying to better
understand my personal reactions to the 'musical interruptions' I've
been 'actively' listening to RP for the past 3 days. Its pretty much
always on.
These are my observations and suggestions from this experience.
I hope they may be helpful but if they simply present my odd way
of looking at the world, so be it. Not surprising RP has a level of
music sounds that are pretty consistent, thanks to William's
expert curation. The best way I've come up to describe it is - a sound
bubble. The overall levels of volume and rhythm rarely overpower each
other but when they do it is in an acceptable way and provides a welcome
auditory and mental change of direction. Ban boredom!
Following along this odd path. The voice patterns, volumes and lengths of 'the
musical interruptions' have a discernible impact on maintaining the
pleasing flow of the bubble. I've noticed that these impacts can be
manipulated by altering these characteristics.
William's voice has friendly non intrusive flow to it. It is heard but never clamors
for attention - even when his DJ chatty goes over time. Very rarely does
it ever enter into 'the pay attention to me' stage. Maybe its natural
or the result of a life time of radio presence. I don't know but it
seems to work effortlessly. And I fully enjoy it.
Alanna's voice has a pleasing but 'louder' overall presence that generates a much
more discernible impact - the 'pay attention to me' quality. This
seems to be impacted by the length of the message. Station ID's vs
Thank you's vs 2025 promotions. The shorter the message the less
intrusive. This is not to say that I don't 'like' her voice, just its
impact on my listening experience.
Listener comments are usually fairly short and non intrusive, but as the length
increases so does their level of intrusion. And some of the recent crop definitely fall
into the overly emphatic 'pay attention to me' category.
I fully realize that a person's voice - volume, rhythm, and accent is what it is
and can't be readily nor should it be changed. But it is possible to
alter its impact on its audience. Quiet and forceful can overwhelm loud
and bombastic. Its all in the presentation and exposure.
My suggestions are
1. Make no changes to Stations ID's or Thank you's
2. Change 2025 promotions and others from the 'full length trailer'
version to that of a 'teaser' or don't present an in depth commercial
but rather an enticing tidbit. You want your audience to tune in as the
result of a perceived value rather than an expectation.
3. Place time limits on listener comments. Maybe not as restrictive as the 'old'
Thanks for Listening but definitely not the rambling opinions of some.
That's my $ .02. Take it from whence it comes. You asked, I answered. RP is
not perfect. I grumble to the speakers about it at times, but for the
greater majority of the time, I fully enjoy it and really don't know
what I would do it it were no longer a very large part of life.
i've learned to listen and even like to some bob dylan and bruce springsteen
tells me anything is possible here at radioparadise
however, i'll never understand what red dragon sees in dengue fever
You remind me of the people who have pleaded for an auto-skip function, so that they never hear artists or songs they've decided they don't like. A few have come up with a script to automatically skip or mute based on stream metadata, like it sounds like you have.
It would be trivial for us to add that as a feature. But we never will.
Indulge me.
21 years ago a co-worker turned me onto Radio Paradise with a simple "Check this out, I think you'll like it". I've been listing virtually every day since.
It's not just that it's commercial free. I've been introduced to countless new (to me) artists & many of them became favorites. Early Porcupine Tree, who I later saw at the Fox Theater in Boulder (you likely know that venue, William), a small campus club at the University of Colorado. They blew the place down & I was standing 10 feet from the stage. I never would have experience that without RP.
I've grown to enjoy entire new genres through world music that William programmed, now it's own Global Mix.
What I most appreciate about RP has always been Bill/William's artistic genius for creating amazing mixes. Things you might not even pick up on until you've been listening for a good while & develop the accuity to pick up on the subtle yet powerful flow of the music.
It's also been a remarkable & super cool journey to experience the growth of RP as William has implemented his vision over the years. Going from a single stream to multiple mixes. Launching the mobile app, which was a bit shaky at first on my iPhone 1 & less than reliable ATTBI network. William has always pushed the current state of technology to its limits.
William & I are about 2 months apart in age, and as I retired from my 40 year career it occured to me that OMG he might just be retiring himself in the not-to-distant future! WTF would I do then !? And just about the time I seriously had a feeling it might be coming, he relocated, reinvented himself as William, and (it seemed to me) relaunched the whole platform with Alanna & crew, taking it to new heights. It's like someone walked up to me and said "Check this out, I think you'll like it" all over again. In fact, someone did - William, of course.
When you live on the edge of exploring your vision & exposing it literally the the entire world, there are going to be quirks here & there. Things will be tried and some of them may be pulled back. One of the things I appreciate most is that not only is RP listener-supported, but that William listens back to his audience such that it might (and has) influenced his vision. You can't please everybody, but it's not like he doesn't give it credence. I find this remarkable, unheard of the "radio business".
So for 21 years I can honestly say that for me, it doesn't get any better than this. I wouldn't change a thing. But William & Co. might, and I'm along for the ride.
You remind me of the people who have pleaded for an auto-skip function, so that they never hear artists or songs they've decided they don't like. A few have come up with a script to automatically skip or mute based on stream metadata, like it sounds like you have.
It would be trivial for us to add that as a feature. But we never will.
There are plenty of ways to feed yourself a steady stream of nothing but music you know you're going to like, and to protect yourself from music you don't like. That's perfectly fine, of course, but it's not what RP is about.
Auto-skipping songs would totally disrupt the flow of my music mixes, so that's one factor. But I also think that customization of listening options â fine-tuning what plays & what doesn't based on your existing opinions & prejudices â has gone way too far, and I resist the idea of helping it go any further.
When I was a kid, the hit-music stations played ALL of the hits. Beatles, Stones, Yardbirds, Cream, you betcha. But also Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Johnny Cash, Petula Clark, and countless others I would have never chosen to listen to. I know that my ability to appreciate a wide range of musical styles has its roots at least in part in the fact that I did NOT have the ability to customize my listening.
One listener who begged for the ability to skip anything by Radiohead followed up a few years later by thanking me. I kept exposing him to Radiohead, and little by little he started finding things to like, whole songs he enjoyed even. He became enough of a fan to buy a ticket to see them live. He said it was the best concert of his life, and that's what inspired him to thank me. So you never know what will happen when you're pushed out of your comfort zone.
I get that you were talking about skipping our promos, not skipping songs. But the same principle could apply. You could hear something in one of the Radio2050 promos that makes you think, well maybe *that* episode might be interesting. Maybe in the end it could turn out that your first impression of the channel was wrong. Or maybe there was just that one episode that was an exception â but that one episode leads you toward a monumental shift in perspective that alters the whole course of your life.
And if that turns out to not be the case, what have you lost, really? A few minutes of your time, over the course of days of listening. Seems small enough. Indulge me.
I just spent yesterday evening scratching the itch to remove the Radio 2050 commercials from my life soundtrack. I find them very distracting, especially when in deep thought, and for my part a completely irrelevant interruption. I listen to RP for the music, a few of William's musings and that's all. I do this programmatically via my home automation system to skip things I just don't want to hear (simply because I can, being a software type of guy). The Grateful Dead, Beth Orton and Bombino have all long been expunged from my system, for similar reasons!
It would help me if your promos were listed as such; instead of giving them the same "Commercial-free" artist as all other musings, change it to "Radio 2050", "Check This Out!" or even "Promo". Currently I skip announcements that are longer than 15 seconds, but of course that removes all of William's longer musings, which is a pity, but it's the least worst option for me. Having a unique artist tag would help me greatly. I readily accept I'm not like most normal people, and this will help no-one other than home automation programming types, but it would improve *my* experience.
That said, I actually like hearing the short station idents, even when in a different language. But the emphasis is on "Short". Maybe if they all said the same phrase it might educate us a little? Sorry to be negative about Radio 2050, but it's simply not my thing. Like the Grateful Dead, I'm sure others will love it, but not me.
You remind me of the people who have pleaded for an auto-skip function, so that they never hear artists or songs they've decided they don't like. A few have come up with a script to automatically skip or mute based on stream metadata, like it sounds like you have.
It would be trivial for us to add that as a feature. But we never will.
There are plenty of ways to feed yourself a steady stream of nothing but music you know you're going to like, and to protect yourself from music you don't like. That's perfectly fine, of course, but it's not what RP is about.
Auto-skipping songs would totally disrupt the flow of my music mixes, so that's one factor. But I also think that customization of listening options — fine-tuning what plays & what doesn't based on your existing opinions & prejudices — has gone way too far, and I resist the idea of helping it go any further.
When I was a kid, the hit-music stations played ALL of the hits. Beatles, Stones, Yardbirds, Cream, you betcha. But also Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Johnny Cash, Petula Clark, and countless others I would have never chosen to listen to. I know that my ability to appreciate a wide range of musical styles has its roots at least in part in the fact that I did NOT have the ability to customize my listening.
One listener who begged for the ability to skip anything by Radiohead followed up a few years later by thanking me. I kept exposing him to Radiohead, and little by little he started finding things to like, whole songs he enjoyed even. He became enough of a fan to buy a ticket to see them live. He said it was the best concert of his life, and that's what inspired him to thank me. So you never know what will happen when you're pushed out of your comfort zone.
I get that you were talking about skipping our promos, not skipping songs. But the same principle could apply. You could hear something in one of the Radio2050 promos that makes you think, well maybe *that* episode might be interesting. Maybe in the end it could turn out that your first impression of the channel was wrong. Or maybe there was just that one episode that was an exception — but that one episode leads you toward a monumental shift in perspective that alters the whole course of your life.
And if that turns out to not be the case, what have you lost, really? A few minutes of your time, over the course of days of listening. Seems small enough. Indulge me.
I love having the longer promos. It reassures me that there is someone on the other end watching over things and pushing the right buttons. The announcements are really not an impact on my listening enjoyment.
Back in the day, Bill would back-announce several songs that were in a set. I kind of miss that.
I think it would be fun to have a few of us back announce.
I love having the longer promos. It reassures me that there is someone on the other end watching over things and pushing the right buttons. The announcements are really not an impact on my listening enjoyment.
Back in the day, Bill would back-announce several songs that were in a set. I kind of miss that.
I gave a constructive solution that will help me, and possibly some others.
Possibly. Nonzero possibly.
If I have the music up loud, then the talky bits are jarring. There is nothing that can be done about that. At office-low volume, I can never hear any of the promos or chitchat because William has always rejected the "make commercials louder" school of radio.
To summarize... please abandon your own promotion and add data elements to your free service so my isolated experience with your community can remove all traces of you (minus a few words here and there if you can keep it short).
I will never complain about anyone speaking on RP again.
It may be a free service, but I am also a regular financial supporter too. I also skip through TV adverts programmatically, or at least hit the mute button if I'm watching ouside of my distraction-free home. Are you saying that I should watch every commercial too?
Note that I wasn't complaining about someone speaking either. Wiliam asked what they could do at their end, and I gave a constructive solution that will help me, and possibly some others. All I really want is a return to the time when RP didn't feature 'advertising'. Is that such a bad thing?
I just spent yesterday evening scratching the itch to remove the Radio 2050 commercials from my life soundtrack. I find them very distracting, especially when in deep thought, and for my part a completely irrelevant interruption. I listen to RP for the music, a few of William's musings and that's all. I do this programmatically via my home automation system to skip things I just don't want to hear (simply because I can, being a software type of guy). The Grateful Dead, Beth Orton and Bombino have all long been expunged from my system, for similar reasons!
It would help me if your promos were listed as such; instead of giving them the same "Commercial-free" artist as all other musings, change it to "Radio 2050", "Check This Out!" or even "Promo". Currently I skip announcements that are longer than 15 seconds, but of course that removes all of William's longer musings, which is a pity, but it's the least worst option for me. Having a unique artist tag would help me greatly. I readily accept I'm not like most normal people, and this will help no-one other than home automation programming types, but it would improve *my* experience.
That said, I actually like hearing the short station idents, even when in a different language. But the emphasis is on "Short". Maybe if they all said the same phrase it might educate us a little? Sorry to be negative about Radio 2050, but it's simply not my thing. Like the Grateful Dead, I'm sure others will love it, but not me.
To summarize... please abandon your own promotion and add data elements to your free service so my isolated experience with your community can remove all traces of you (minus a few words here and there if you can keep it short).
I will never complain about anyone speaking on RP again.
Like I said, we ARE going to have promos. What can we do to make them more tolerable?
I just spent yesterday evening scratching the itch to remove the Radio 2050 commercials from my life soundtrack. I find them very distracting, especially when in deep thought, and for my part a completely irrelevant interruption. I listen to RP for the music, a few of William's musings and that's all. I do this programmatically via my home automation system to skip things I just don't want to hear (simply because I can, being a software type of guy). The Grateful Dead, Beth Orton and Bombino have all long been expunged from my system, for similar reasons!
It would help me if your promos were listed as such; instead of giving them the same "Commercial-free" artist as all other musings, change it to "Radio 2050", "Check This Out!" or even "Promo". Currently I skip announcements that are longer than 15 seconds, but of course that removes all of William's longer musings, which is a pity, but it's the least worst option for me. Having a unique artist tag would help me greatly. I readily accept I'm not like most normal people, and this will help no-one other than home automation programming types, but it would improve *my* experience.
That said, I actually like hearing the short station idents, even when in a different language. But the emphasis is on "Short". Maybe if they all said the same phrase it might educate us a little? Sorry to be negative about Radio 2050, but it's simply not my thing. Like the Grateful Dead, I'm sure others will love it, but not me.
