On the Internet waves

How radio broadcasting appeared on the Internet and what you can listen to from Russian-language Internet radio stations right now

On June 30 at 18:00 Moscow time, will be launched the Apple Music music service . One of the features of the platform will be continuous Internet broadcasting on the 24-hour Beats One radio station.

Apple's Internet radio will operate from three cities - New York, Los Angeles and London - and will be broadcast by three DJs, including former BBC One man Zane Lowe. According to company representatives, Beats One will be available to listen to in 100 countries simultaneously in English.

TJ figured out the history of radio broadcasting on the Internet and found out which Internet radio stations are popular on the Russian Internet at the moment.

The first "Internet radio"

The progenitor of Internet radio broadcasting is considered to be the American economist, writer and well-known expert in the field of information technology in the West, Karl Malamud. In 1993, he founded the non-profit public research corporation The Internet Multicasting Service, which launched Internet Talk Radio on April 1 of that year.

In fact, Internet Talk Radio did not broadcast live, but was an FTP server from which anyone at a special address could log in and download audio recordings of radio programs created specifically for the project to their computer.

Internet Talk Radio's first radio program was the weekly show Geek Of The Week , hosted by Carl Malamud himself and interviewing prominent engineers and programmers of the time.

Carl Malamud

Over the course of a year of operation, thousands of Internet users from several dozen countries became listeners of Internet Talk Radio, and already on January 1, 1994, the IMS Corporation presented its new project - the RTFM Internet radio station, which for the first time broadcast live 24 hours a day.

RTFM users could not only listen to the station’s radio programs in real time, but also save archived recordings of past broadcasts. In addition to many broadcasts from various conferences and round tables, for the first time, listeners had access to a live broadcast of the meeting of the Joint Committee on Economics .

Music concerts on the Internet

On June 24, 1993, the first music concert broadcast over the Internet took place - a performance by the Californian rock band Severe Tire Damage.

In November 1994, the British rock band the Rolling Stones performed the " first large-scale multi-broadcast concert " online. The band's performance began with a special opening speech by its lead singer, Mick Jagger.

I would like to especially greet everyone who has come online today and is listening to us on Mbone (an experimental virtual network for broadcasting over the Internet - TJ) . I hope nothing goes wrong.

Mick Jagger, lead singer of the Rolling Stones

Despite growing IMS projects and multiple experimental single-networks, Internet broadcasting was not very popular due to low connection speeds.

RealAudio

The situation was changed by former Microsoft executive Rob Glaser, who founded Progressive Networks in 1994. A year later, it released the RealAudio extension and made it free.

Using new digital compression algorithms, Glaser's plugin has significantly improved the speed and quality of audio transmission and storage on the Internet. In addition, RealAudio had not only the function of transmitting, but also storing data, which allowed listeners of Internet broadcasts to rewind them.

Later released full-fledged player based on RealAudio

The advent of publicly available streaming software has fueled the growth of Internet radio stations.

Broadcast.com

In 1995, Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner came up with the idea of ​​rebroadcasting one of the local radio stations in Dallas on the Internet, using their friend’s regular computer in their bedroom. Over time, this hobby grew into a business, and by 1998, their Broadcast.com project offered its users broadcasts of over 300 radio stations.

Broadcasting companies themselves asked the creators of Broadcast.com to include their station in the list of available radio projects, thereby expanding the reach of their audience at the expense of network users. In return, they provided commercial “slots” in their broadcast network, in which any advertising was allowed.

Broadcast.com sold audio advertisements that were played to listeners before they connected to the Internet broadcast of the selected show. In addition, the company monetized through banner advertising, which users saw on their computer screens while listening to the broadcast.

As of 1998, Broadcast.com had a market value of over US$1 billion, and on July 20, 1999, the company was acquired by Yahoo for US$5.7 billion.

At the dawn of a new millennium

With the spread of broadband Internet access, many Internet radio stations have improved the quality of their broadcasts by increasing network bandwidth and getting as close as possible to the sound of CD players. Having gotten rid of telephone modems, Internet broadcasts themselves became more accessible to a larger number of users, and many traditional radio stations decided to transfer their broadcasts to the Internet.

Homemade Internet radio studio from the early 2000s

By 2004, various catalogs of Internet radio stations included over 15 thousand radio titles on a variety of topics.

The formation of Internet broadcasting in Russia

In Russia, Internet broadcasting appeared in mid-1994, when the musician of the Russian-American group “ Center ” (not to be confused with the modern rap group Centr) Vasily Shumov created the “Radio Sovdep” website. As on Internet Talk Radio, all Sovdep programs were recorded in advance and uploaded to the site’s server.

In 1995, the Moscow radio station “ Maximum ” was the first in Russia to open its official website, but in the initial version of the resource there was no streaming broadcasting - Internet rebroadcasting of regular broadcasts appeared only in 1996.

In 1996, “ Europe Plus ”, simultaneously with the regular broadcast, broadcast Artemy Troitsky’s “Dostoevsky FM” program via the Internet. Around the same time, “ Silver Rain ” launched its page on the RuNet with built-in Internet broadcasting.

Russian Internet radio

The first Russian-language Internet radio station broadcasting exclusively online was simply called “Internet Radio.” It was created and registered in the summer of 2000 by former employees of the capital's Radio 101. Since October 3, 2000, Internet Radio has moved from automated broadcasting to live broadcasting with the participation of DJs. (The project has now ceased to exist.)

Since that time, more and more sites began to appear on the RuNet, which at first simply transmitted an audio stream over the network, and then grew into full-fledged Internet radio stations with their own teams of presenters.

Popular Russian Internet radio these days

« 101.RU »

In June 2007, the Prof-Media Broadcasting Corporation (VKPM), having assessed the prospects of Internet radio using the example of foreign colleagues, launched the 101.RU portal in test mode under the motto “One hundred and one radios without advertising” with 35 channels .

Currently, the 101.RU portal includes more than 200 professional Internet radio stations of various styles and trends with the participation of experienced radio DJs who not only select music, but also conduct various entertainment programs. You can also listen to rebroadcasts of popular terrestrial radio stations on the resource.

In addition, “101.RU” users have the opportunity to create their own Internet radio station “literally in a few clicks and absolutely free”: just decide on a name, colorfully describe your “creation”, choose the genre of musical compositions that will be played on the new radio, and download or select from the existing library at least ten tracks for broadcasting - that’s it, you are the owner of your own radio!

" Zaitsev.FM "

Anyone who downloaded music from the Internet in the 2000s probably knows about the site “ There are no rabbits here!” "(now simply "Zaitsev.net") is one of the most famous pirated resources for free listening and downloading music tracks from the network. At some point, the fame of “music hosting” was not enough for the portal administration, and it decided to create its own Internet radio station mentioning a popular brand.

Currently, five separate channels are available on Zaitsev.FM - in the style of Pop, Disco, R'n'B, NewRock and Club. Each genre has its own DJs who regularly host news, entertainment and interactive show programs .

" Storm.FM "

A fairly young Internet radio with the motto “Music is our element” with a stated focus on young people, just like “Zaitsev.FM”, has five broadcast channels for different tastes - starting from Russian pop performers, continuing with high-quality foreign music and ending with popular club music.

Storm.FM has its own news service, SkoroNews, which succinctly talks about all the important events of the day. The site also has a section “ Storm TV ”, in which popular music videos are displayed one after another.

« Moscow.FM »

Unlike previous Internet radio stations, Moskva.FM does not have its own presenters or even independent broadcasting, but the project has a large-scale catalog of frequency stations with the function of daily archiving of their broadcasts.

If a listener missed his favorite program on the radio, just go to Moskva.FM, find the archive of broadcasts for the desired date and listen to it directly on the network.

In addition, the site maintains a complete playlist of all the tracks on the air: so if someone liked the song playing on the road, but there is no opportunity to “Shazam” at this time, then you can simply remember the time it was played, and then find it in the archive of the desired radio station.

Alexander Shchepilov,
TJ FM

#Debriefing