How To Be Rad: An Interview with Radical.FM’s Creator Thomas McAlevey – Part 2

How To Be Rad: An Interview with Radical.FM’s Creator Thomas McAlevey – Part 1
November 22, 2011
Can I Please Convert Better?
November 29, 2011

How To Be Rad: An Interview with Radical.FM’s Creator Thomas McAlevey – Part 2

Tom McAlevey, CEO of Radical.FMAnd now for part 2 of my interview with Thomas McAlevey…

The RadicalIndie platform is an amazing opportunity for independent musicians. Can you explain how you came up with the idea? Do you think it sets you apart from the other streaming platforms? If so, how?

Nobody in the world offers such an advanced fully-functioning streaming music service, dedicated exclusively to Indie artists; that fact alone sets Radical Indie apart. In addition, no service in the world currently offers RadCasting (the ability to simultaneously share your unique music stream with as many fans as you wish, in real time), and when DeeJay is added early in 2012 this will provide a truly unique opportunity for Indie artists to engage their fans. They can play their music and present it live, to an audience limited only by the band’s appeal. Indie artists are notorious early adopters and we expect them to grasp the power of RadCasting with DeeJay more quickly than FM Users. However, the same implications apply to Radical.FM, and it’s easy to envision ‘Radical Gaga’, with Lady Gaga breaking her new single on her own Radical radio station to millions of fans, in a not distant future.

Working at an ad agency, we are always interested in the up-and-coming streaming platforms to see if they would work for our clients. Can you tell me about the advertising opportunities on Radical.FM?

Seriously, of course the advertising opportunities include banners and even traditional TV style video spots, like you can see on Pandora today. Our emphasis however, will clearly be on traditional 30 second terrestrial radio type audio spots. These are equally effective on mobile platforms and in cars as they are on desktops. We will cap our spot loads voluntarily to a maximum of five minutes per hour, i.e. two 30 sec. spots between each three songs. Our research has shown this to be a palatable quantity and spot break-down, for American Internet radio consumers – who are used to much more on terrestrial radio.

Of course we are Radical, so we have to be unique. We envision one of the most interesting forms of cooperation with advertisers to be sponsorship of popular RadCasters, e.g. the Radical Gaga show mentioned above. Perhaps the most interesting aspect from an advertiser’s point of view of RadCasting is the fact that, precisely like terrestrial radio, we can offer a concrete local connection, as well as personality-driven programming. RadCasting with DeeJay will even allow for local talk, news, and weather, as Radical begins to usurp terrestrial radio’s last frontier in a way that no Internet service has done before.

Mallorie McRea is Traffic Manager at The Radio Agency. Please follow The Radio Agency’s Blog “Sounding Board” by subscribing to the RSS link above. Visit our website TheRadioAgency.com