Not to sound like a broken record of nostalgia, but I should point out that the way Nullsoft’s dev team promoted SHOUTcast technology was by having each of the team members run a stream, each of a different genre. Worked like a charm. This is how we ended up with classic streams like Tag’s Trance Trip and BlueMars which lasted for over a decade. They were so popular they formed their own independent fan bases which carry the torch to this day.
So, running a team-run radio station? I’m all for it. Let’s be scrappy and start with a simple 6 buck a month streaming server and scale up as needed. We wouldn’t need more than 25 concurrent listeners to start out. 64kbps dynamic bitrate OGG. We’d just bypass any bells and whistles they offered by using our own LibreTime server and shoot the mix up to the streamer as a relay.
The bandwidth for the LibreTime server would be so negligible that any of us could volunteer a personal machine for it to function. Hell, I’ll even offer mine. I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again.
We’d set up scheduled shows, each have a team member do a minimum 1-hour live show a week, and that way we can actually use this software in a collaborative environment, and open it up for guest spots from the broader community.
The Libretime Community Access Radio Server (Yes, that spells LCARS for you Star Trek fans out there.)