DFSX to Sign Off in Two Weeks
D a v i d T a n n y
Comedy Radio Station to Cease Streaming Dementia After July 11th
A San Diego radio station that has been championshipping the genre of
dementia is signing off next month.
Due to declining listenership, DFSX Radio will be signing off as a
comedy music station after July 11, 2007.
With rising CRB rates driving our streaming provider Live365.com to go
either out of business on July 15th or raising the cost of our streaming
package to unaffordable levels, as well as declining hours spent by
listeners, the programming of dfsxradio.com will cease to have a
streamer after the final edition of the "Kahnman's Comedy Corner" airs
on July 11th.
After peaking with over 5,000 hours of listeners a month in December of
2006, DFSX was well on its way to having 50,000 hours a month by June of
2007. The hourly count stands at a paltry 1,900 hours for June alone.
With a lack of a needed level of VIP listeners (300 needed to
break-even, current total is only 15), the programmer and bankroller of
dfsx felt it was time to sign off as a comedy music station.
After July 11th, DFSX will switch to an unknown format until the stream
is gone either July 15th when Live365 shuts down, or continue until
mid-October when the P1000 package expires.
"It's time for me to sail off into the sunset like Gene Autry did in
1996," says David Tanny, who launched DFSX in February of 2000. "DFSX
has opened up the genre of dementia to all kinds of interesting subjects
that have gone ignored and unnoticed, even playing novelty songs that
never got any airplay on the terrestrial airwaves."
Says Tanny on signing off, "With my streaming expenses currently losing
over $35 a month, and the fact that there isn't enough people spreading
the word about DFSX, and not enough VIP listenership, which helps pay
for the streaming expenses incurred (only $3 in June), I took a long
hard look at the future and felt it was time to go in another direction
in my life."
Reasons Tanny, "The few that were spreading the word about dfsxradio
helped prolong its life, but it's apparent that not enough of the fans
were telling their workmates and friends to listen, the DFSXradio
merchandise on Cafepress featuring bumper stickers and buttons have only
$10 in sales in the past two years it's been in existance, not enough
artists are telling their fans to listen to the station and vote for
their songs that are on the DT20 ballot, and in short, it's just plain
too much work for too little reward in numbers, hence, it's time for me
to free up some of my time for other things in my life."
DFSX has broken many artists through the ramdonized playlists as well as
the specialty shows. One notable artist that got its debut on DFSX was
Lemon Demon, played in a 1994 episode of "The Kahnman's Comedy Corner,"
which will continue on as a podcast run independently, as well as
"Dave's Gone By", which will have its final airing as a triple-header on
July 7th.
Other shows such as the "DT20 Zone" will be revamped as a plain "DT20
Countdown" podcast, while the features "New Strokes" and "Demented
Resurrection Zone" will either be incorporated into the podcast or
cancelled.
Cancelled shows include "The Humpday Special", "DFSX Time Machine,"
"Best of the Mad Music Show", whose original podcasts were derived from
can be downloaded at http://www.themadmusicarchive.com/, as well as "The
Best of Manic Mondays".
Also cancelled is "The Steve Jarrot Show," which will continue to be
carried on other affilliates. DFSX will link to the website
http://www.stevejarrott.com for the listener's convienience.
The long-running "I Still Get Demented" radio show will have its final
airing on DFSX July 8th, which will be the 30th anniversary of the death
of Elvis Presley.
After that date, "ISGD" will be open for syndication possibilities on
other streamcasters as well as podcasters.
"ISGD has been our flagship radio show since January of 2003", says
Tanny. "I'd like to see that continue on other comedy music radio
stations and podcasts at least in rerun form."
"The numbers for the specialty shows except for the DT20 zone were
averaging around the 5-9 listener mark, which is too low to sustain a
streamcast and my energy involved in creating them," says Tanny. "The
lone exceptions were the Kahnman and DT20 Zone shows in the 15-25
range."
DFSX signed on in February 2000 when it was just a randomized playlist
full of songs and no specialty shows. Specialty shows began in December
of 2002 when a pilot called "The DFSX Fun Show" aired as a one-time
shot, which evolved into the "ISGD" show the following January.
During that time, the Kahmnan show hosted by Tyrone Kahn aired within
the "ISGD" show in 2003, then was spun off into its own show in January
2004. During the time since December 2002, DFSX ran marathons of
Halloween music, Christmas and Hanukkah novelties, and counted down the
top songs of the past year around New Year's Day.
In its early days in 2001, DFSX was once a duo-cast, running two
channels. One devoted to the current novelty hits, and one for the
nostaliga hits of dementia. One year, the second channel switched to all
demented holiday music, then was off the air a few months later. DFSX
ran a solo cast since then.
Powered by Live365.com back in 2000, DFSX had visions of creating more
specialty channels devoted to holiday music, reruns of ISGD, and comedy
talk sketches and stand-up, but due to the cost of the packages offererd
by Live365 that began in mid-2001, those plans were put on hold until
the target VIP count of 600 listeners would be reached. The highest it
got was 20.
When the Copyright Royalty Board set the high rate of streaming
copyrighted music retroactive to the beginning of 2001 in mid-2002,
Live365 began charging for streaming their services to pay the costs of
royalties due to SoundExchange. With the new rising rates retroactive to
January 2006 due on July 15th, Live365's bill for paying SoundExchange
is a prohibitively high $7 million fee, which is so high that the
company will have to shut down and declare bankruptcy, or continue on
but charging the streamers higher costs per package to cover the
copyright fees.
With the rising costs of streaming not keeping in line with the number
of VIP listeners, many thousands out of over 10,000 radio stations using
Live365's services are estimated to either go independent, shut down
their stream, go underground using a streaming service that goes under
the radar of SoundExchange, or exist as a podcast.
DFSX has exposed many dementia and non-dementia artists including the
aforementioned Lemon Demon, plus Drunk and Disorderly, Hyde Tanner,
Deirdre Flint, The Melonheads, Organ Failure, Frozen Inertia,
Switchblade Kittens, Ken Turetzky, Richard Cheese, Whitie McWhiteivich,
The Weasels, Alex Whitmore, Brett Eidman, The Morells, Automatic Pilot,
Wendell Ferguson, Mr. Plow, Big & Rich, Swinging Erudites, Ruby Tunes,
Throwing Toasters, The Dude From Mars, Marc Gunn, No Holds Barred Radio,
Chaston and Groditski, Bright N Perri, Hypnotic Clambake, Steve Goodie,
Avenue Q, The Blow Kings, Screech and Bif, The Consortium of Genius,
Jeff Daniels, Nick Noxious, William Shatner, The Frantics, The
Vestibules, The Arrogant Worms, The Worm Quartet, the great Luke Ski,
Tony Goldmark, Carla Ulbrich, The Four Postmen, Bob Pyle, Are Paul
Schlosser, Ian Butler, Cab City Combo, S'Aint Willy, Russ Buchanan, Fast
& Dirty, Mister Joe, Kacey Jones, Man Bites God, Ostrich-Back Riders
Hayseed Dixie, Whimsical Will, Raymond and Scum, Sean Morey, the late
Logan Whitehurst, The Mod-est Lads, Jim's Big Ego, Jane Hathaway, Dave
Blackledge, Glenn Erath, The Kwiffs, KJV Presents, Jimmy Fallon, Dan Orr
Project, Donna Kay Honey, Brobdingnagian Bards, Warp 11, Sudden Death,
Bob Ricci, Slant 6 and the Jumpstarts, Bret Walton, Phil Van Tee, Dan
Hart, George Lopez, David M. Kilgore, Tom Tuerff, Jim Caruso, Larry
Weaver, Atomic Jefferson, and many thousands more including, David
Tanny, Robert Lund, and Weird Al Yankovic.
DFSX also broke from its dementia genre format to prove that the format
is more than a cookie-cutter genre by playing a few mainstream artists,
subjects that wasn't known to fit the dementia genre, nostalgia novelty
and old time rock and roll music, even disco.
DFSX will continue on as a podcast, but it's likely that it will be a
sixty-minute weekly or monthly show depending on interest and subject.
The DT20 Show as it is now may continue as a podcast with the lower ten
songs played in excerpt mode to save time.
More details to follow soon on the dfsx website
http://www.dfsxradio.com/
Write Your Representatives Now!!!
http://capwiz.com/saveinternetradio The future of Internet radio is in
immediate danger. Royalty rates for webcasters have been drastically
increased by a recent ruling and are due to go into effect on July 15
(retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!). If the increased rates remain unchanged,
the majority of webcasters will go bankrupt and silent on this date.
Internet radio needs your help! The Internet Radio Equality Act has
recently been introduced in both the House (H.R. 2060) and Senate (S.
1353) to save the Internet radio industry. Please call your senators and
your representative to ask them to co-sponsor the Internet Radio
Equality Act by clicking below.
peterpuck9
wrote:
> Best of Manic Mondays".
>
> Also cancelled is "The Steve Jarrot Show," which will continue to be
>
> Write Your Representatives Now!!!
>
> http://capwiz.com/saveinternetradioThe future of Internet radio is in
> immediate danger. Royalty rates for webcasters have been drastically
> increased by a recent ruling and are due to go into effect on July 15
> (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!). If the increased rates remain unchanged,
> the majority of webcasters will go bankrupt and silent on this date.
> Internet radio needs your help! The Internet Radio Equality Act has
> recently been introduced in both the House (H.R. 2060) and Senate (S.
> 1353) to save the Internet radio industry. Please call your senators and
> your representative to ask them to co-sponsor the Internet Radio
> Equality Act by clicking below.
>
> http://www.SaveNetRadio.org
DT
That is certainly sad to hear. I really have enjoyed your station and
have tried to promote it wherever possible, but I guess to no avail.
Hopefully you will be able to continue with podcasts but I know the
shows will be a lot shorter.
Thanks for the entertainment and for playing my sometimes bizarre
requests!..........Pete
Johnny Wilde
radio stations that stream their content as well. Write to your congressman
directly or call them on the phone. I filled out an online email form and
got a response from the Senators office that they did not accept third party
emails. Another case of the big guys kicking sand in the faces of the
little guys. Rise UP !!
George Orwell
the spirit of deeeeeeeeeemented music alive.
By the way do you know what happened to 103.7, The Planet?
Also, have you thought of doing a specialty show through one
of the community college radio stations? San Diego State's
http://kcr.sdsu.edu,?
Anyway, there's always hope with that internet radio law, those nasty cork
suckers.
Don't pack up the kids and crank up the car yet:)
Good luck
David Tanny
> Thank you very much for the music, madness and keeping
> the spirit of deeeeeeeeeemented music alive.
>
> By the way do you know what happened to 103.7, The Planet?
It's now Sophie, as in, Sophie king boring radio.
>
> Also, have you thought of doing a specialty show through one
> of the community college radio stations? San Diego State's
> http://kcr.sdsu.edu,?
Don't think that's possible. Heard they want hundreds of dollars to
do one show.