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Turn the radio volume down for adverts and DJs talking

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Re: Turn the radio volume down for adverts and DJs talking

#161

Post by kfrzcode »

imtyler wrote: post #83
matthewfelgate wrote: post #2

A script for automatically lowering the volume during radio advertisements and DJ announcements and turns the volume back up when songs are playing. It controls a Sonos speaker using the Soco-cli Python library when Tunein is being used.

Aw. I want to like this, but I work in radio. If you remove ads then there's no reason for the broadcaster to keep going. I'm not trying to be controversial, but if you remove profit how can the business continue to exist? And if terminating the business is your goal, why? People seem to have a grudge against radio and I honestly don't know why. It's my livelihood. I'm not seeking sympathy, but I am curious.

Theoretically - this script doesn't actually impact your ad rev; in fact you'd be more likely to have longer listener time, given the listener isn't switching it off or to a different frequency when the ad roll hits. So, more ads overall.

Unless you get paid per decibel.

Re: Turn the radio volume down for adverts and DJs talking

#162

Post by dijit »

tehnub wrote: post #159
govg wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which channel is that? Among channels that I have watched in the past, Internet Historian has done this very well.

I’ll bet five bucks it’s Linus tech tips.

LTT isn’t terrible, but Jay Foreman is more likely in my experience.

He makes his own (creative) original content for his sponsorships.

Re: Turn the radio volume down for adverts and DJs talking

#163

Post by simonebrunozzi »

imtyler wrote: post #83
matthewfelgate wrote: post #2

A script for automatically lowering the volume during radio advertisements and DJ announcements and turns the volume back up when songs are playing. It controls a Sonos speaker using the Soco-cli Python library when Tunein is being used.

Aw. I want to like this, but I work in radio. If you remove ads then there's no reason for the broadcaster to keep going. I'm not trying to be controversial, but if you remove profit how can the business continue to exist? And if terminating the business is your goal, why? People seem to have a grudge against radio and I honestly don't know why. It's my livelihood. I'm not seeking sympathy, but I am curious.

Tell your boss that we hate when you raise the volume and fuck up with us listeners. Thank you. That's it.

They do the same with TV, by the way. It's not just radio. I would love if governments would simply ban this practice. It's annoying as hell.

Re: Turn the radio volume down for adverts and DJs talking

#164

Post by kstenerud »

imtyler wrote: post #83
matthewfelgate wrote: post #2

A script for automatically lowering the volume during radio advertisements and DJ announcements and turns the volume back up when songs are playing. It controls a Sonos speaker using the Soco-cli Python library when Tunein is being used.

Aw. I want to like this, but I work in radio. If you remove ads then there's no reason for the broadcaster to keep going. I'm not trying to be controversial, but if you remove profit how can the business continue to exist? And if terminating the business is your goal, why? People seem to have a grudge against radio and I honestly don't know why. It's my livelihood. I'm not seeking sympathy, but I am curious.

We don't owe you anything.

If your business model involves annoying us, we'll find a way around it. This is YOUR problem, not ours. Find a better business model or go out of business.

Re: Turn the radio volume down for adverts and DJs talking

#165

Post by Affric »

imtyler wrote: post #83
matthewfelgate wrote: post #2

A script for automatically lowering the volume during radio advertisements and DJ announcements and turns the volume back up when songs are playing. It controls a Sonos speaker using the Soco-cli Python library when Tunein is being used.

Aw. I want to like this, but I work in radio. If you remove ads then there's no reason for the broadcaster to keep going. I'm not trying to be controversial, but if you remove profit how can the business continue to exist? And if terminating the business is your goal, why? People seem to have a grudge against radio and I honestly don't know why. It's my livelihood. I'm not seeking sympathy, but I am curious.

I was a treasurer for a not for profit radio station. We made the money to cover our costs through other services and we had special licensing arrangements that made it cheaper for us to broadcast.

Of course, when a right wing government got in they halved the number of frequencies available to the community and sold our frequency to a for profit who was marketing to young women and teens.

Re: Turn the radio volume down for adverts and DJs talking

#166

Post by kybernetyk »

imtyler wrote: post #83
matthewfelgate wrote: post #2

A script for automatically lowering the volume during radio advertisements and DJ announcements and turns the volume back up when songs are playing. It controls a Sonos speaker using the Soco-cli Python library when Tunein is being used.

Aw. I want to like this, but I work in radio. If you remove ads then there's no reason for the broadcaster to keep going. I'm not trying to be controversial, but if you remove profit how can the business continue to exist? And if terminating the business is your goal, why? People seem to have a grudge against radio and I honestly don't know why. It's my livelihood. I'm not seeking sympathy, but I am curious.

I decide what plays on my radio/speaker. So I have every right to turn off ads.

Re: Turn the radio volume down for adverts and DJs talking

#167

Post by valleyer »

Mister_X wrote: post #147
fibonachos wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My uneducated guess: To keep you listening while minimizing royalty payments for playing music?

Not likely, since the ASCAP reporting period is only one week, twice each year. ASCAP = American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Society_of_Composers%... I used to game the system by playing little known/independent artists I had a personal connection with during each reporting window.

I hadn't heard about this sampling strategy, and I don't know much about music licensing, so I did some reading to learn more.

https://www.ascap.com/help/royalties-and-payment

> Each year, ASCAP processes trillions of performances of ASCAP music. Whenever it makes sense economically, we conduct a census survey, or complete count, of performances in a medium. For media that fall under our census surveys (for example, the large majority of network TV performances and over 2000 broadcast radio stations monitored by Luminate Data, LLC, formerly MRC Data, LLC), ASCAP seeks to pay on every surveyed performance.

> Where a census survey is impractical, we conduct a sample survey, meaning that we pay royalties based on a representative cross-section of the performances on that medium.

This suggests to me that for major radio stations, the strategy of "more talk, less music" will reduce royalties—and that your strategy might only work at a smaller station.

Also, ASCAP seems to govern only the rights to the composition. Most radio stations play from recordings. Do the record labels (or whoever collects for them) also utilize a similar sampling strategy?

Re: Turn the radio volume down for adverts and DJs talking

#168

Post by xnorswap »

amatecha wrote: post #121
gcau wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If radio ads weren't full of yelling, car-honking, sirens and overly attention-grabbing things, people wouldn't care as much. Same as websites putting up huge, 5MB-big popup ads and not liking that people want to adblock them. Especially worse, is when the ads are far louder than the content itself.

Oh yeah like the ubiquitous "buzzing alarm clock", crap like that should literally not be legal.

In some places it isn't.

It's a social issue and you should petition for the change you'd like to see.

For example in the UK, advertisers must comply with the Advertising Standards Authority code [1], and section 4 includes:

> Radio only – Advertisements must not include sounds that are likely to create a safety hazard, for example, to those listening to the radio while driving.

Which while open to interpretation, this would likely include any sirens likely to be confused with a genuine siren.

Or:

> Television only – Advertisements must not be excessively noisy or strident.

( That one might raise an eyebrow to anyone familiar with the long running "Go Compare" campaign! )

Of course these codes are always written in a way that's woolly and often adverts are only banned after complaints have been made.

But the framework is there for standards to be written and upheld. It relies however on people being willing to put in time and effort to complain when standards are broken, and there needs to be effort made to tighten those standards in some areas to stop standards slipping, although in general standards have been tightened rather than loosened over the years.

If your experience is very different, consider that it may be worth spending time organising a campaign group to lobby the FTC (or FCC?) to tighten their rules, or organise a group to put in complaints to organisations which have similar "voluntary" codes such as the BBB and also pressure the BBB to tighten their rules to have guidelines prohibiting such noises.

Change doesn't happen for change sake, it requires organisation and action, but even a handful of people can effect huge change with a concerted effort.

[1] https://www.asa.org.uk/codes-and-rulings/advertising-codes/b...

Re: Turn the radio volume down for adverts and DJs talking

#169

Post by amatecha »

xnorswap wrote: post #168
amatecha wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah like the ubiquitous "buzzing alarm clock", crap like that should literally not be legal.

In some places it isn't. It's a social issue and you should petition for the change you'd like to see. For example in the UK, advertisers must comply with the Advertising Standards Authority code [1], and section 4 includes: > Radio only – Advertisements must not include sounds that are likely to create a safety hazard, for example, to those listening to the radio while driving. Which while open to interpretation, th…

Nice, yup that's a great point. Here in Canada it would be the CRTC. Yeah, I could write them. I've reported spam and related stuff to them before but got no response. Perhaps things are different in the marketing/advertising side of things. Guess I'll just have to find out! :)

Re: Turn the radio volume down for adverts and DJs talking

#170

Post by weberer »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #58

To really kill radio a tool to parse those online radio playlists and play them on streaming music service would be cool.

Open VLC, then hit Ctrl+L to open the playlist menu. Then click Icecast Radio Directory. There's thousands of ad-free streams right there.
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