Benefits of using our control panel

Shoutcast hosting control panels are a fairly new technology only made popular within the last 10 years. Before these control panels, users would have to manage their accounts by hands with no convenient automation software. Needless to say the introduction of shoutcast control panels brought many benefits with them.

All of our packages come with a convenient Auto DJ shoutcast service. This is one of the great benefits of having a control panel. You can easily manage, update, and schedule play lists and rotations so that your radio is always streaming even when you are not connected.

Another benefit of using a shoutcast control panel is simple user and listener statistics – know where your listeners are from and how they are finding you. Adjusting bitrate and listener limits is also possible whenever you want with our control panel.

Our shoutcast control panel demo

If you would like to try our system before purchasing you can simply sign up for our free shoutcast hosting plan to set up your stream and work out the kinks before you pay for your service. Alternatively, you can log in to the control panel with a demo account here.

Why there aren’t many free shoutcast hosts

Needless to say offering a free service, no matter what the service, is a challenging business model. There are a few web hosts that offer free shoutcast hosting in exchange for links and advertisements on your website and stream page. This can be attractive for some small users or hobbyists, but if you are trying to make a professional name for yourself or run a business with your radio station, you should choose a paid service.

Although prices of bandwidth are continuing to decrease, it is still quite expensive. Due to the streaming nature of SHOUTcast servers, they can use a lot of bandwidth with minimal use. In addition to bandwidth, Auto DJ services can use a lot of CPU resources and can be quite expensive to run for free.

Why you should be weary of free shoutcast hosting

If you are running your radio station on a free shoutcast hosting plan, you need to be careful. Since you don’t own the feed it can potentially be taken away at any point. Also, many free shoutcast hosts do not offer static IP addresses and your host and address may change from time to time which can be very inconvenient.

Our free shoutcast hosting package

With all of that said, we do offer a free shoutcast hosting package. It’s not much – only 48 kbps and 2 listeners – but it gives you a chance to get used to our system and setting up a stream before investing real money into it.

All you have to do is send us an email requesting the free server and we will have one set up for you immediately. You can then upgrade your account at any time to one of our paid shoutcast hosting packages.

Unfortunately, it’s not free to run an online radio station, it takes both time and money. Looking for a sponsor for your station is a great way to pay for service fees and your time to maintain it.

Why would people sponsor you?

Lets face it – people don’t sponsor radio stations for fun, they typically purchase ad space in order to sell their products or services. You need to give them a good reason to sponsor you before you try to seek out sponsors.

Does your genre attract a certain type of listener, or are you a local-focused station? If your station has a well defined target market, it will make it much easier to find a sponsor.

How to find potential sponsors

Finding potential sponsors takes some time, but is a fairly straight forward procedure. It’s all about making contact and asking. Unfortunately, many people do not even attempt to ask because they sell their station short.

The first place to start to look is in your local community – if you are an up and coming radio personality, there may be local businesses willing to invest in your online radio initiatives, no matter what the genre or focus is. Start with your contacts in the local business community – specifically in the web and tech industries. You can exchange on-air and website advertisements for a monthly fee to cover your hosting and other expenses.

If your station focuses on a specific target market, you might be able to find other websites in your niche that are selling products and services. Making contact with these sites is straight forward and can be done through their website’s contact forms.

Local artists are another great source for sponsors. Up and coming musicians are always looking for new places to play their music. These artists are typically selling their tracks on itunes and can hugely benefit from exposure on the web.

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Finding a sponsor for your station is not easy – but it is simple. Keep reaching out and you will eventually get sponsored.

What is Auto DJ and how does it work?

Auto DJ is an automatic DJ feature that allows radio station owners to stream music and tracks even when they do not have a source connected to the server. It works streaming files and data from the server instead of from your work station. You can easily manage your play lists and schedules all within our easy to use shoutcast control panel.

Wake up to a great morning mix by scheduling pre-recorded tracks and mp3 files to start and stop whenever you want them to. Auto DJ is both convenient and easy to use.

Why you should use Auto DJ

Previously, online radio stations would need to go off the air if there was not a device connected to the stream. This was a huge inconvenience for listeners and often lead to people abandoning stations due to dead air.

With Auto DJ you can simply use the preset play lists and have them loop during the hours you would otherwise have dead air, which will increasing your listener loyalty.