Radio Free Westport, Radio Free World

Local Resident Sings Success With Online Radio Launch

Adam Huening

In the back room of Steve Hodgson’s home in Westport, the music is always playing. No one can hear it in the house, but it’s there in the background spinning Led Zeppelin, the Stones, Kenny Chesney and Carrie Underwood in a constant, never-ending stream.

Hodgson and his wife, Jen, have embarked on the radio station of the future. On Oct. 1, they launched a new Website, YourOnlineRadio.com, with three different stations - rock, country and Christian music - and so far the response has been far beyond anything the local web mogul could have imagined. In the first month, Hodgson said he has received more than 20,000 unique visitors from across the nation, many who are listening for more than four hours. The numbers bolstered his feeling this was the right venture, but its popularity really struck him when he entered a Shelby County business and heard his wife’s recorded intro and hand-picked set list playing in the building. Hodgson said he stopped in his tracks and just listened.

“It shows us people want something like this,” Hodgson said. “We’re doing something right. It’s a good feeling knowing that you’re doing something the people want.”

After toying with the idea of buying a radio station, Hodgson, who owns the web design business Street Smart as well as Photo Memories DVD, got a new idea. It was simple: Offer constantly streaming music over the Internet for free and keep the talking and commercials to a minimum.

“People don’t want to hear us. They don’t want to hear a DJ,” Hodgson said.

So Hodgson and his wife recorded introductions to certain shows and let the music play. Since the FCC does not regulate stations like regular radio, Hodgson said he is free from station identification interruptions and can do and say as he wishes.

“You hear four-in-a-row work block and then they go to a commercial,” Hodgson said. “With this, it’s all the time, every day.”

The concept is simple, he noted. Hodgson developed a web site and purchased software from a company to offer three separate radio stations. A visitor to the site clicks on a station and a player opens up. The player lists the song title, artist name and album as well as a link for listeners to buy the song on Amazon. The player can easily be minimized so listeners can continue surfing the web or get back to their work. Hodgson noted anyone with Internet can take part, and connection speed is not an issue. The player automatically detects a listener’s connection speed and adjusts the stream to fit the individual’s needs.

The songs range from popular hits to album-only tracks that someone may never hear on the radio. Hodgson said the order is random, but he can filter songs to play a certain number of times. More popular tunes, like Underwood’s “Cowboy Casanova,” can be set to play more often than other tracks.

The idea is on the cutting edge of the way people listen to music, he said.

“This step has already passed XM. Anyone can access the Internet at home, at work, on their phone anywhere you can have access,” he said. “Online radio is all about the music. People want to hear good music. There’s never a reception problem. It’s top-quality CD sound.”

It’s also virtually free of talk and commercials. Hodgson said the country stations have commercials, but they are wedged at the top and bottom of an hour, which keeps the music flowing and offers better recognition for his advertisers. There are no commercials on the Christian station, he noted, but listeners can hear sermons from area churches, such as the Westport Baptist Church. These can also be accessed at any time on the Website.

Once a week, the country station hosts a talk show called Your Life Matters. Hodgson and his wife conduct the interviews, which have had guests ranging from members of the 9/11 Commission to area hospital staff to Decatur County Sheriff’s Deputy Rob Goodfellow and Westport Police Chief Todd Hampton. The interviews are posted to the site after the show and can be accessed at any time. Some have been so popular , Hodgson had to rerun them, he said. Some discussions have been so engrossing, he added, they’ve extended into the next hour.

The topics are generalized rather than specific so the show can appeal to a national, even global audience.

“It’s the stuff that interests people. We’re trying to get the stories people want to hear,” Hodgson said.

The topics are designed to appeal to a wide audience, but Hodgson said he tries to avoid controversial subjects that may polarize an audience. Politics are also somewhat taboo on the show.

“I don’t want to become Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly. That’s not what we’re about,” Hodgson said. “We want to include everybody. We don’t want to be known as a Westport station. We’re here in Decatur County, but that’s where it ends. This is for everybody.”

So far, the mix has worked. Hodgson, who has to pay royalties for playing the music, has already blown the two small plans that came with the player, which monitors all the statistics. While he’s paying more than he anticipated at this point, he said the station was never meant to be a get-rich scheme. He hopes to make it self-sustaining and leave the rest to the music.

“This is your online radio. We might own it, but it’s your music. It’s a whole radio station just for you,” Hodgson said.

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