Thursday 5 May 2011

Could it be done?

As you'll know, my involvement in Radio takes up a tremendous amount of my time - add to that the work that goes into doing the 'Pure Grooves' magazine each week, and I've worked out I'm putting in almost 50 hours a week into them both.

It begs to ask the question whether I should be getting an income from it. I've been thinking about this a lot lately and it does make me think that if there's no real opportunity to get into mainstream radio due to the way it's going with the networking of lots of local radio stations, whether it would be possible to make a living from the work I do on my shows and the magazine via a sponsorship/donation/subscription route.

Certainly if it was possible to earn a living in that way, it would allow the opportunity to devote all my working time to the shows and the magazine. However, it would mean that I would need thousands of people willing to donate a small monthly amount towards this.

The biggest problem I see with that is that with internet radio spreading and getting bigger, there is more choice than ever before, and as you don't need to pay to hear it, why would you want to?

Once again it means that you have to have something special in the way of programming to build a loyal and devoted following that would be prepared to commit to spending their money (and in the economic climate we're in at the moment, that's a big ask).

For someone like myself that has been earning a living from DJing over a period of years and wants to continue in that vein, I certainly feel that it's a route that I may have to look at. 

I've seen a change in the way the public are now spending their leisure time over the last few years. The majority of pubs/clubs continue to cater for the 18-25y/o age group - and as I'm now 50 it means that I am getting to the stage where that age group feel I'm not relatable to them.

It means that as time goes on, I will get less opportunity to work in pubs and clubs. Therefore, radio is a medium in which I can still thrive and would obviously like to take it a stage further and prosper financially from.

It seems to me that in order to actually find people willing to donate, I'm going to need many more listeners!

I think I need to put my thinking cap on and find something unique about my shows and magazine that makes people feel they'd be happy to subscribe.......

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