Online radio service Radionomy relaunched its website Tuesday morning, and it’s now looking to capture the U.S. market with an interesting proposition: Radionomy offers music and radio enthusiasts a chance to program their own radio stations online and broadcast the result for free to an unlimited number of listeners.
Radionomy’s new website gives DJs and other music enthusiasts unlimited storage to upload their music. Producers can also access up to 80,000 tracks from Radionomy’s music library, and even access syndicated news programming. All of this can then be scheduled like a traditional radio station, and mixed with live programming if desired. Running an online radio via Radionomy is free, and the company splits its ad revenue with its radio producers.
Radionomy, which is based in Belgium, originally launched its service with a focus on the European market in 2008. But even with that limited focus, Radionomy has been able to rack up some impressive usage: The service has seen 50 new stations a day on average, with a total of 6000 stations being available at any given time. Radionomy currently sees around 43 million listening hours a month, I was recently told by the company’s VP of business development Thierry Ascarez, who also serves as Radionomy’s first U.S.-based employee.
Radionomy’s closest competitor in the U.S. is Live365, which has been offering a similar service for more than ten years. However, Live365 charges its broadcasters monthly fees, and broadcasting on the platform involves the use of special software. Radionomy’s new version, on the other hand, is completely web-based, even for broadcasters. And Ascarez told me that the company will even offer live streaming from mobile devices soon. “That’s the next step,” he said.
Radionomy has raised a total of $ 6 million from its parent company Musicmatic, which also owns the music distribution platform Jamendo. The company currently has around 20 people on staff and will hire more people in the U.S. soon.
