Questions and Answers - Cool Music Variety! Online Radio.

Questions and Answers about the programming and marketing success of this free online radio station's broadcasting

When did you create your web radio station? 

Cool Music Variety
https://www.radionomy.com/en/radio/coolmusicvariety/index
Online Activation: 4/5/2017 

Wow, that’s 2 years ago! I hadn’t realized it. And Cool Music Variety just migrated it program to Shoutcast at https://streamingv2.shoutcast.com/CoolMusicVariety

Why? 

I’ve listened to stations that SAY and falsely promote that they play EVERYTHING, but they lie, because they don’t. Cool Music Variety doesn’t play everything, but I play a wide, w-i-d-e music variety. This is my second attempt, the first was Eclectic and Covers; I guess, practice makes better. 

Plus, I’m Neale Sourna; a creative person, an author, game writer, short story writer, novelist, screenwriter, and artist. I style and create my own book covers. When tired of stations playing the same old oldies or same old new tunes, I’ve always known I could do better, and have.

What is making your web radio station unique? 

I program music from the ENTIRE length of recorded music, from Whispering by Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra RECORDED in 1920 to Ice Cube’s Good Cop Bad Cop and the present. Music from every continent. Opera to Rap, Industrial Rock to Country. Film, Theater, and TV music. Comedy to Protest. World. Etc. Aretha, Curtis Mayfield, Sia, Björk, Jay-z, Todd Rundgren, Native American / First Nation, instrumentals, etc. 

Cool Music Variety is a mini sampler of the history of music, and how music reflects our ideals, fears, and daily culture throughout a century, and more. The more being a few tunes recorded of older music by Beethoven (1800s), Bach and Mozart (1700s), and Purcell (1600s), etc.; yeah, that’s music from the 1600s!

How did you choose the name? 

Because it’s Cool Music and Music Variety, a title tweaked by using an SEO search site for online search usage.

How can you explain such a success? 

I don’t think I can explain Cool Music Variety’s success, except it’s presented well and tells the truth. There is true variety, music, and cool (Nat King Cole is always cool, so is Astaire, and Sinatra). It has been SEO’d on its website page http://www.neale-sourna.com/radio.html. It is refreshed with new music and new old music and genres. 

I don’t program playlists, that play the same thing in the same order every time. I let computer serendipity reign, which can give play Natalie Cole followed by her father Nat “King” Cole, The Runaways followed by former member Joan Jett, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe doing gospel or early R&B / rock-n-roll followed by The Dixie Chicks then Flo Rida inviting you home.

Could you give 3 tips for the radio producers? 

Love the music you play. Or the people who love it. I have favorites of my parents back in their day, of my grandmother, siblings, cousins, nephews, friends, etc.
Make certain there are enough tunes. After listening to my station, when I listen to some at Sirius or terrestrial, I can hear that they don’t have as many songs as Cool Music Variety does on any given day. 

I let the computer mash up the play, because I program NO PLAYLISTS; but make categories within the Smart Boxes and alternate Day Templates to keep it fresh, contrast-y, and interesting.

What was your strategy to increase your audience? 

Program great tunes from truly great voices, like Mahalia, Aretha, Sia, Winehouse, etc, and fantastic, legendary songwriters, like Mercer, Waller, Lennon & McCartney, and more. Lots of women. Program some originals with covers, some Live, some Studio, some Remixes. 

• Make a title that’s SEO search friendly to draw in listeners.

• Listen to your station daily.

• You can also pay, or do it manually, for a SEO submitter to keep refreshing your product to the worldwide search engines.

How do you promote you radio station (local advertisement, social network...)? 

Cool Music Variety has a Facebook page besides a homepage. 

It gets mentioned on my writer’s blogs. It is a part of the creative spirit, too. 

It’s submitted regularly to an SEO Submitter.


How would you define your listeners? Do they have specific expectations? 

People who love and enjoy all music; especially great writers and singers who don’t need to be tuned by a machine. People who enjoy pop, pop jazz, pop rock, rock-n-roll, R&B, well, ALL kinds of music; from Beethoven to Björk. Classical to Indigenous.