It was once the "future of rock and roll" but no more. Internet only radio station WOXY.org has signed off for the last time, leaving fans in the lurch and raising serious doubts about the future of internet based radio. "This is the moment all of us hoped would never come. After plugging away at this for the past two years, it's become pretty clear that operating woxy.com as a stand-alone Internet "radio station" is not going to cut it. Our operating costs are higher than you might think, and the revenue we were able to generate from advertising isn't close to supporting what we're doing. Even membership revenue wasn't enough to get us there. When your business doesn't make money, you eventually go out of business."
It's tough to make it in internet streaming radio, and after two years of raging against the machine, WOXY is gone. Realistically, it's almost impossible to compete and be profitable. Royalties, legal costs, bandwidth costs and more conspire to make internet radio a really unfriendly place to do business.
1. News has it that Barb will be starting at "the Current" a Minneapolis based NPR run Alt station.
She starts the morning slot on October 3rd.
Posted at 11:25AM on Sep 19th 2006 by John Beckman