Building and Maintaining Community

According to Goldsmith, KPIG's online streaming programs boost and support its standard broadcast reach. Goldsmith mentions that the local feel of the programming feeds what is called an illusion of inclusion. Online listeners around the world can still take part in the small town, independent feel of this terrestrial broadcast station by peeking in through their Webcams, adding their own comments, requesting songs and of course, listening to an unapologetically provincial style of programming.

DJs encourage the sense of community through listener ratings. Although not required to use this feedback, DJs can see what listeners think of songs in the form of ratings from 1 ("sucko-barfo") to 10 ("Godlike") and read text comments. This kind of give and take, although not practical for terrestrial broadcast programming, is easy within the online world.

Goldsmith has as much (or more) experience as anyone in this just-emerging realm of streaming radio programming. He observes that competition is much greater in the online world. And with a vastly larger number of competitors, it's a much greater challenge to stand out from the herd. He offers that the quality of the product has "gotta be really good." Goldsmith is not only talking about the programming, either. Quality is also represented by stream stability and Web site ease of use the entire end user experience. Aiming his comments directly at the online presence of most radio stations, Goldsmith opines: "… mediocrity and lowest common denominator won't work."