An interview with Radio Arkadiaa pretty decent radio station In February 2013 Fishface announced he was working on the launch of his new radio station called Radio Arkadia. http://arkadiaforum.com/showthread.php?6263-The-Countdown-Begins Reactions on the news were mostly positive and people seemed to like the idea and Fishface said that this will be "bigger than everything else tried in EU before". Not long after the announcement the news came out that the launch would be accompanied by a real life concert in Fremont, Wisconsin, USA http://arkadiaforum.com/showthread.php?6331-Radio-Arkadia-Road-Trip-2013-all-invited This is for sure something that has never been done before in EU, so that was probably what he was talking about, right? Not long after the announcement we at EP thought it might be a good idea to do an interview with Fishface about his radio station and contact was made pretty soon after. He agreed to answer some questions and also mentioned that we should talk to RavenJade, who is a big part of the operation. I could of course not let the opportunity go by to talk to RavenJade, contacted her and she agreed to answer some questions. After the usual chit chat, how are you, where are you, how is the weather, loot suck, right?, yeah it does, we got to the important stuff. --- First of all, what is your role in this Radio station project, what's your 'job description' ? I'm lead in promotion, daily DJ, brainstormer, whatever is needed. You call your station Radio Arkadia, what about player on other planets, are they not allowed to listen? It will be based on Arkadia but it will have content for the whole universe. The whole point of Radio Arkadia is to be able to listen to it, no matter where you are in the universe. We have a different concept than the other wonderful radio stations already established on Entropia. Our aim is for people to be able to tune in while they grind on the game. The name suggests that there is some kind of connection between you and Planet Arkadia, is there? We got special permission from Dave Dobson to be able to use the name Arkadia for our station name. So everything we do we have to be mindful of the reputation of Planet Arkadia. It keeps us on our toes. :) Did you consider other names, I mean why not Cyrene Radio or Radio Next Island? Because Fish and I believe in planet Arkadia, the community there feels like calypso did pre vu 10. There's just something about Arkadia. It's magic and we're hoping Radio Arkadia will have the same community feel. We never considered a name other than something to do with Arkadia. Why should people tune in to Radio Arkadia and not Atlas Haven Radio or Normandie Radio? We don't want them to stop tuning into the other stations. It's about choice. Atlas Haven Radio is great for social gatherings. If you want to go somewhere and not spend PED, and hang out with your friends, then AHR or Normandie are great for that. Our radio station will be more community based. If you're out playing the game and you want music to listen to, turn us on. What about music, what can we expect? We will only focus on rock music. So unlike other stations where you don't know what the genre will be from one DJ to the next. Ours will be consistent. We'll also be featuring indie rock bands, like Halocene, I love the energy an unsigned band has. (https://www.facebook.com/Halocene). We also encourage anyone to send in their rock bands music. Halocen, that's also the band that will be playing at your real life launch event, right? What's you connection to them? I met them when I discovered them on YouTube. After talking with them they agreed to do a theme song for me. After that myself and fish became really big supporters of theirs. Have you heard my theme song? > The real life launch party is just the start. We will be doing more real life events as we go. We don't yet know where the next real life party will be of course, we need to launch first. We will also have a live feed going for those that can't make it to the real life launch which we will announce on our website and Facebook page. I think that real life events are a good idea and probably what Fishface was talking about when he said "bigger than everything else tried in EU before? " or can we expect more? Yes, it will be bigger than anything else ever tried in EU. It's one of those things you have to watch unfold as it happens. It's exciting to be part of. Both you and Fishface have been DJ's for a long time, when did Fishface come up with the idea of his own station and why? Fish and I came up with The idea after he left AHR. It's easy. We were both strong supporters of an all rock station. We felt there was a need for it. That's why. Over the last 18 months its taken on a life of it's own How many DJ's are there currently planned for the station? So many I've lost track lol, honestly. We'll be launching with a full schedule of DJ's. We won't have a jukebox. There have also been some people that have helped with the website and programming that won't be on air as a DJ. Are there any plans for more activities then just radio and would you be willing to work together with some of the other community projects? We will have a lot of video, with blog and vlogs as a strong possibility. We would also love to cooperate with other community project in one way or another. I was wondering what the reach of Radio Arkadia will be, in other words, how many listeners do you think you will have? We're hoping that as we grow our listener base will, too. But that is going to take a lot of work, which we are all prepared for. So I'm not sure what the reach will be as of yet. What we're planning hasn't been done yet. Atlas Haven Radio and stations like it go for the party, we won't be a party station. That leads to the next one. How is this all funded? I mean I assume there will not be that many listeners in the beginning to get a lot of advertisement and there has to be royalties and stuff paid to the artists right? Yes, there are quite a bit of royalties to be paid, even for a small station... and Fishface has that amount set aside to cover the quarterly payments. So, right now we are funded by Fishface. He has the real life job to handle such costs. To guarantee up time and speed I'm sure you need some powerful servers, how is that taken care off ? Fishface has the hosting servers. We have more than one so that we can offer the stream at different quality settings for people that worry about bandwidth (some Aussies for example have metered bandwidth) and in case one server goes down we have a back up so we hope to avoid any downtime. Can people buy advertisement time with you guys, to cover some of the cost and if so does that have to do with EU only, maybe Alienware or Gunnar, they have a link to Arkadia anyway? Well when we do go after advertisers, we plan to go after sponsors that have something to do with either the game, or gamers. Alienware has been talked about. But we haven't gotten anything from them, or gone to them yet. The trick is to have the listener base first. So at first, that's an out of pocket expense. Somehow breaking even in the future would put less pressure on Fishface. Right now this is a really expensive hobby. He's already bought thousands of dollars in real life for all the songs we have for the station. The royalty companies, they reserve the right to come by and check on you at any time. So you have to have all your t's crossed and i's dotted. --- Well there you have it folks Radio Arkadia, yet another exciting addition to the Entropia Universe. We still have to wait a few more months, but I'm sure it will be worth the wait and I'm sure that along the way we will get more and more info about the station and it's DJ's. Knowing Fishface and RavenJade I'm guessing there will a lot of fun going on both on and off air, but we have to wait and see (or hear). In her own words: "RavenJade began playing Entropia in the summer of 2007. During this time she's been Miss Calyspo 2010, skilled all naturally to level 60 laser sniper. Been a flirty DJ personality with a slight obsession over vampires since 2009. And most importantly it's RavenJade First!" Facebook page Radio ArkadiaTwitter Page RavenJade
