[quote=“Fox”]
We can have:
Quiet Moments with The Sandman
Law and Order- The Kennedy File
Torn Apart- By Tigerman
In Bed with Fred
The Three bob Jobs
I can’t Get No Satisfaction- 914 and the Erhus
Breakdown: MBJ
Break up: rantheman
My Brilliant Career- Jdsmith and Durnis Bane
Lockdown with Comrade Starlin
Hair: Loretta
Zip It- Tetsuo
The Untouchables: Maoman and Goose Egg
Wake Up! with Spook
Mind Games: RichardM
A Voice of Reason with Hobbes and Jaboney
In Your Face: IP Forum Live
In Your Pants: Chewycorns[/quote]
[quote=“Loretta”]I have a collection of listener numbers compiled from server statistics from WWRN. They seem to match the numbers I have seen on computer screens at the studio.
My question is: how reliable are those numbers? Can the software be told to misrepresent the situation or are these figures probably real?[/quote]
It’s very easy to tamper with those numbers. For example, I could write a simple program that would mimic a human using a browser and point the program to www.forumosa.com. I could then execute the program a million times. Voila! Formosa’s traffic increases by a million hits. I could also fake the browser type and other stats. Server statistics are just text files after all.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the figures were real though.
Podcasting is a good idea, but it takes some commitment to work very well. Someone needs to sit down with a microphone and record. I’m sure for some Forumosans who are online litereally every day this should be easy, right? Maybe. But a podcast that is actually a collection of podcasts, that may be, shall we say, a little sporadic… now that could be easily done.
Internet radio stations, like those at live365 are usually music-centered for the obvious reason that producing “live” DJ-ed content would get very unwieldy. I would be surprised to see that work. And since everyone has their own taste in music… well, it’d be tough to develop a Taiwan-centered listener base.
I do hope this podcast idea floats. An easy thing to incorporate into it would be an EFL podcast for students to use.
While the focus of the station would likely be expatriate listeners, there may be a desire or need for local listeners. One reason might be simply to increase audience numbers. Another might be the foreign issue advocacy angle. If you have no local listeners, who are you preaching to … the choir? If so, why? Minimal utility in that, unless you’re trying to form a consensus on some issue.
In any case, if local listeners are desired at some point, the people behind such an enterprise might want to consider limited EFL content. There could be a couple times a day (30 minutes or 1 hours each) when some English learning content could be made available. If pertinent, that sort of resource could be valuable to the millions of Taiwanese learners of English here, even out in the rural areas. This sort of content could be advertised pretty easily by word of mouth through the English teaching industry by teachers. Just a thought.
To operate any media outlet content is needed. A station of any type that has a focus on expatriate listeners needs content that is informative, funny, strange or useful and sometimes useful to the local people . Not all content will make a provider an interesting item to seek out.
How many ex-pats would be willing to provide content and how is revenew to be made? If content is vaild, revenue can be made though ads from those who suppy services to the ex-pat community. If people are found to provide content, could it be presented regularly? “Now here and gone again” content will not gain listerners or viewers. Podcasting takes a commitment from those who are to provide the time and content creations.
Currently the CON (Content On Demand) model would be the best because it’s low cost and doesn’t require live operators. If Forumosa users create the content, I can stream it. However, I haven’t found many hands up for it.
Not to kick a dead horse but let me mention a couple of other things that kind of derail any realistic plans for “Foreigner Radio in Taiwan”.
First, nobody has explained how or why the GIO is going to allocate a frequency exclusively for “Foreigner Radio in Taiwan”. I do not see the Greasball/DPP run GIO doing that. Their excuse/explanation is the foreigners already have IRCT, one is enough for an island with lots of DPP supporters waiting in line to get a frequency.
Second problem: everyone yacks about the play list. It is nonsense. You are never going to come up with a play list that satisfies more than about 5% of the foreigners in Taiwan at any point in time. Take me for example. If I fucking hear Hotel California
[quote=“brianlkennedy”]
First, nobody has explained how or why the GIO is going to allocate a frequency exclusively for “Foreigner Radio in Taiwan”.[/quote]
The current goverment is furthering themselve from the ex-pat community in many ways and they wonder why even currently based overseas companies are moving main operations next door.
I used to work for ICRT a long time ago and I’ve told a few people back then that a varity of content was needed regularly. I’ve see a few at ICRT work their butts off trying. Their problems came from above and were soon fired. Some long term ex-pats ask me why isn’t there other local media for the foregn community and I tell them that if you are willing to create content there will be more.
I agree that one song isn’t going to kill my interest in a station. However, the rest of Brian’s post raises good points that any successful expat station would have to address.
We can have:
Quiet Moments with The Sandman
Law and Order- The Kennedy File
Torn Apart- By Tigerman
In Bed with Fred
The Three bob Jobs
I can’t Get No Satisfaction- 914 and the Erhus
Breakdown: MBJ
Break up: rantheman
My Brilliant Career- Jdsmith and Durnis Bane
Lockdown with Comrade Starlin
Hair: Loretta
Zip It- Tetsuo
The Untouchables: Maoman and Goose Egg
Wake Up! with Spook
Mind Games: RichardM
A Voice of Reason with Hobbes and Jaboney
In Your Face: IP Forum Live
In Your Pants: Chewycorns[/quote]
I just come to Forumosa and get all this already!
And you good Sir Fox, where dost thou belong??
IP forum live, sitting outdoors at Carnegies, laptops hooked into the wireless link…I would PAY to see that!
There is a magazine that targets strictly foreigners here in Taiwan. It is called 24*seven magazine and it has been alive and well received in Taichung for the past two years and now we are bringing it to Taipei and island - wide by 2006.
There is also an internet based engliish radio station here called RTI that I did an interview on recently. They broadcast on the internet and short wave radio. I don’t know too much about them. Here is their website:
24*seven is a foreign community magazine that addresses all of the topics mentioned in this post.
It was developed as a way to bring the foreigner community closer together and we feel that we have done a good job of it in Taichung and would like to copy that success here in Taipei with the help of you, the foreign community.
:bravo: 
