Wednesday, June 15, 2016

June 2016 Update, and Important News

I did the last regular live broadcast of Indie Spotlight a little over a month ago and in reading that you might be wondering why I'm not still doing the weekly live show.

First of all, please understand that while I am still very passionate about indie music and supporting independent musicians, I haven't really been into conducting the live broadcast for a long while, my heart is just not into it like once was. While I still enjoyed doing the show I haven't had the same passion about it that I once did, to quote B.B. King, the thrill is gone.

There is a big part of me that would love to keep doing the show, but I really haven't felt a heartfelt passion about it for a while now. I've kept doing the live broadcast for so long mostly out of habit. So, either the format of the show needs to change or I do, and I'm not 100% sure on how I might do that. When I step outside myself a little bit and really think about it, I clearly needed a break, the question is should it be a permanent one, am I really done? I'm still not sure to be honest.

Secondly, and please understand that I'm not trying to be a whiny little bitch here, but there hasn't been anyone really in chat during the live broadcast for a long while. Simply put, there is just no interest. I totally understand why, I've changed the day, time, and broadcast platform so many times over the past couple of years that even the most die-hard listeners and viewers fell away and I am currently at a loss as to how I might bring people back to the live show although I do have some ideas if I decide to resume the live broadcast.

Lastly, and this is totally on me, as the host, I haven't done anything to make the show interesting. During our blogtv days we had musician interviews, as well as segments like weenie of the week and other humor segments. The feedback that I got at the time that we were doing these was mostly people wanted to check out the interviews, and others liked the weenie segments and logged in to see who the weenie of the week was.

I could go back to doing all of these, but so much of the internet has passed me by.

Let me explain...

We've become an on demand society, proof of this to me exists as far as the show is concerned is as follows;

a) During our last live broadcast we had two live hits, mine and Deb from Unleashed. I talk about promotion, well I do it, and especially on Facebook the post that I made on our Facebook page that I shared on multiple groups including camup, the indie spotlight group as well as a group of fellow blogtv refugee's had over 100 views, but the hit count for the show has been much, and I mean much lower.

b) After the live show, I've been converting the saved video file to an mp.3, and uploading it to our channel on awdio.com. The archived show at least lately is seeing more hit's than the live show did. This says quite a bit, and to me is almost an arrow pointing in the direction that I might need to take the show.

Right now as I see it there are 3 options;

1) Resume our previous format when I'm ready, and bring back some of the humor segments to engage the audience. Should I decide to do this, I at the very least need to retool and reformat it so that I can interact with the live viewing audience a bit more. It would seem that just playing the music isn't the best way to draw and keep a crowd, in our heyday I made things more interesting and if I resume the live show I need to once again.

Also, to do musician interviews again would be a huge step to bringing people in, and I miss doing these anyway. Some of the most interesting people I've ever met were these guys and gals and the interviews were often fun and entertaining.

One thing that I've noticed since our hiatus began is that Camup.tv has had an influx of new users so there might be some new interest, and if nothing else there will still be people who will listen to the archived show on awdio.

2) Switch to strictly a podcast format. This would be easy for me, I could pre-record the entire broadcast and just upload it to awdio at the same date and time every week. This way it wouldn't matter what happens in my personal life or if my work schedule gets crazy since I would be able to plan, record and upload this at my leisure.

 3) Hang up my headset for good.

In any case no matter what I decide to do, I will keep our Facebook presence active. Those who watch our page know that at least on most days, if not every day I share a video featuring an indie musician, which seems to draw attention and get's them more hits so no matter what I decide Indie Spotlight will continue to share music, feature the best of the best and celebrate the brilliance of the independent and unsigned artists.

This has been what Indie Spotlight is all about anyway.










No comments:

Post a Comment