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Magazine: BizBuz Blog

From: Issue | Posted By: Rebecca Bamberger

Ti-vo, the Internet, and Radio in One posted on May 12, 2008

San Diego based wsRadio has come along to offer dozens of archived and live radio shows right from your computer. Chris Murch, founder and CEO of wsRadio, shares why the Internet radio company has taken the world by storm, one show at a time.

Chris Murch, founder and CEO of wsRadio

Interview By Beck Bamberger

Beck: Why does the model of Internet radio work, especially for wsRadio?

Chris: Unlike traditional radio that pays their hosts to be on the air, we partner with our hosts and in most cases the hosts pay for the production time. As we work together to build an audience for their show, with a sustained online audience the show then becomes a revenue generator for the host and us. In the mean time our costs are covered.

Beck: How did you come up with the concept for wsRadio? Was it one of those long thought out ideas or a sudden “ah ha!” moment that struck?

Chris: Before wsRadio I was an Internet Marketer and was involved with a local radio show about the Internet. We were streaming the show live on the Internet and I had a large database of clients from all over the world. I sent them emails just before the show aired live. I was really surprised to learn how many tuned in and I got even more business out of it. Then because of legal issues with royalty rights over music and talent, the station stopped streaming the show so I thought ok now is the time to start my own Internet Talk Radio station. Since day one wsRadio uses our own library of royalty music so we have never been affected and will never be affected by the licensing issues.

Beck: Today, wsRadio is the world’s largest independent Internet radio station. Has that status changed your direction and philosophy as the CEO? It’s been a fast rise to the top since you started with just 5 shows in 2001.

Chris: I have always competed against myself and have set up clear goals. One goal was to reach a million listeners, it took 9 months to reach that goal, then it was to have a million listeners a month, again it took a few more months to reach but that is when we landed our deal with eBay to produce eBay Radio, that was a major turning point for us. Now my goal is to have 500 shows on wsRadio and set up 60 local wsradio stations across the country for local markets and I will reach that goal, but it will take 2-3 years. You don’t have to be the biggest but you do need to set goals. An important goal has always been and will continue to be the best. I can honestly say no one does it better than us, we really have an incredible team at wsRadio, half radio broadcasters and half internet professionals and we have fun at it.

Beck: wsRadio has hundreds of shows to listen to-there are even shows about Ebay and Rudy Giuliani, as you noted. What attracts an increasing number of corporations, hosts, and organizations to start a show on wsRadio, do you think?

Chris: The neat thing for us is we are our own media. We get between 5-10 requests a day to do shows on wsRadio, obviously coming from our listeners, others just hearing about us. So we have the luxury of picking and choosing who we want to work with. We know what type of shows and hosts will work for us and we stick with our filtering process. Another capability of ours that few are aware of is we do private broadcasting for large corporations like IBM and the United States Postal Service. Years ago we partnered with a local company called Mentor U that had a great elearning back end and so we combine private broadcasts with elearning which makes a great communications platform, superior to conference calls and webinars. We just signed a huge client on board but it is for private broadcasting and they do not wish their name to be made public.

Beck: What’s a barrier to enter your industry? Would you say it’s your empire of shows? It’s not like Joe down the street could have a Wall Street Journal show and 50 others on tomorrow.

Chris: Like anything else it is the through P’s for me, Persistence, Perspiration, and Passion. It is also a technical challenge to marry radio and the Internet. Even after two years of doing shows from Studio A when we set up our second studio B, with all of our experience it took weeks to make it technically work, but we prevailed and when we set up Studio C for broadcasting, we will have to tweak that one as well.

Beck: You’re dealing with very targeted audiences, not mass media with the shows on wsRadio. Where do you think broadcast radio is heading?

Chris: That is an easy one for me. It is heading to the Internet. We are pull media instead of push and that is what the consumer wants, media on demand. In the early 1980s we had 3 major news networks on TV giving us what the news of the day was. Then cable came on with CNN and then Fox and others, then the Internet became the information on demand solution and since the Internet is now coming to the cars with voice activation (I always knew it would happen just did not know when). Now people will be able to listen on demand to whatever they want. That is why we have over 95% of our listeners listening demand. Another reason for us to open up local wsRadio stations across the country, we need to penetrate those markets now so when the technology is in place their success will be ensured.

Check out wsRadio