Christmas Music 24/7

Christmas 2018 on YouTube

Mike Clark — Fri, 30 Nov 2018 16:50:12 +0000

Christmas Music 24/7 Shutdown on Live365

Mike Clark — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 02:47:58 +0000

I am sorry to have to announce the Christmas Music 24/7 has shut down all of its stations on the Live365 Network. I will be working in the coming months to start the stations up again elsewhere online. But it will take a lot of time to get that done.

The final playlist on the Traditional station was made up entirely of different versions of “Silent Night” and “Do You Hear What I Hear?”

Thank you for listening and your support over the years.

Quick Performance Royalty Stats for December 2014

Mike Clark — Thu, 31 Dec 2015 14:38:59 +0000

I’ve been looking at my logs to see how much webcasting would cost under the new Copyright Royalty Board Rates. The new rates are $0.0017 per song, per listener. So if one song is played, and that one song had 100 people listening, it would cost $0.0017/listener times 100 listeners, which is $0.17 (seventeen cents). An hour has approximately 14 songs in it, so an hour of webcasting to 100 people would be $2.38 per hour. Now multiple those figures by 24 hours in a day. And then 30 days in a month. At 100 listeners every hour, in one month, the total would be: $1,713.60. Does all that make sense? The per performance royalty rates get large very quickly.

OK, here are real numbers, from my network of stations. I’m still crunching numbers, but since most of my stations are Christmas-themed, most of my listening occurs between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. I won’t have detailed stats on December 2015 until some time in 2016, so this is what happened last year, the calendar month of December 2014.

There were 3,583 different songs played across my stations in December 2014, with a total of 4,101,098 performances. Some songs were played on smaller stations and only had a handful of listeners. Some songs were played on the flagship station and so were heard by several thousand people simultaneously. Multiple the number of performances (4,101,098) times the cost of each performance ($0.0017) and you get a royalty bill for December 2014 of $6,971.87.

The VIP referral awards, listener awards, and ads on the Christmas Music 24/7 web site don’t come anywhere close to earning nearly $7,000, plus whatever other royalties wold have been due for January through November. Niche webcasters simply can’t afford these rates.

Webcasting Royalty Rates for 2016

Mike Clark — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 21:58:27 +0000

The webcasting royalty rates have been announced for 2016 and later. The new rates aren’t currently feasible for the Christmas Music 24/7 network of stations to continue broadcasting after December 31st, 2015. I’m not sure what will happen, or how I’ll adapt things, if I even can. But I’ll let you know what happens.

The new rates for 2016 are $0.0017 per song per listener. So right now I have a total of 1,133 listeners. That would cost me $1.93 in royalties. Multiply that times 14 songs per hour, that is $26.97 per hour in royalties. This network of stations doesn’t earn anywhere near that amount of money. Of course, that amount is lower at night when there are only a few hundred listeners, and higher in the middle of the day when there are closer to 2,000 listeners. I’ll put some more specific historical data together later. Apparently, SoundExchange is going to give some information out next week on how small webcasters may be able to be managed in the future, but that is really the only hope available right now. The other long shot is going back to Congress and asking them for relief, like we did years ago with the Small Webcasters Act.

Thank you for your support over the past 11+ years. Mike

4 Months until Christmas

Mike Clark — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 18:35:27 +0000

This has been a tough year. I’ve had a lot of changes going on. I just returned to school last week, starting a two-year program to become a paramedic. I do have a small stack of CDs to process and get added to the stations. I’ll work on that as I’m able. The websites have been down for a few months, but I think on my new web host they will be in good shape. Best wishes to everyone! Mike

Whitney Bozarth – Noel

Mike Clark — Fri, 05 Dec 2014 16:05:09 +0000

Here’s a lovely rendition of Noel by Whitney Bozarth. It’s on BandCamp, so name your own price. Enjoy her music.

Home Free – Full of Cheer

Mike Clark — Thu, 04 Dec 2014 21:43:10 +0000

Here is a wonderful group, Home Free, singing “Angels We Have Heard On High” from their new album “Full of Cheer.” I bought and added this album to the acapella Christmas station.

You can buy this album at Amazon.

10 Years Old!

Mike Clark — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 13:46:57 +0000

Last week was the tenth anniversary of the first broadcast of Christmas Music 24/7. We’ve had millions of listeners, and played thousands of songs. We now have nine different Christmas stations, and a handful of non-holiday stations. Thanks for making this a joy to do, even when life has been tough. I hope to be here doing this in 2024!

Pentatonix singing Mary, Did You Know?

Mike Clark — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 20:01:33 +0000

Another great song from Pentatonix, Mark Lowry’s “Mary, Did You Know?”

New Music on Christmas 24/7 Classical

Mike Clark — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 20:43:21 +0000

I’ve just added about five hours of new music to Christmas 24/7 Classical. Artists, performers and groups include:

Larry Dalton, and the National Philharmonic Orchestra Of London
Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra
Ensemble Galilei
Manor House String Quartet

Christmas 24/7 Classical is currently ranked as the 450th most popular station at Live365. Not bad, out of more than 6,000 stations. Thanks for listening!