How to Start an Internet Radio Station From Home: A Step-By-Step Guide (Updated)

If you thought only a professional could start an internet radio station, you’d be wrong. Anyone can! After reading this step-by-step guide you could be ready to broadcast this afternoon and have your home radio live in no time. We’ll get you up to scratch on the necessary equipment, legal issues, and even how to turn your  station into a business.

Things to consider before starting an internet radio station

Step 1: Decide on your concept

Before you rush into anything, it’s worth taking the time to consider what kind of station you want yours to be. This means thinking about size, collaborators, and content to ensure consistent branding across all of your programming. If you’re planning to work with other collaborators and radio DJs on the station, make sure they’re privy to these discussions to ensure that everyone is on the same page from the very beginning.

Here are some key questions to ask yourself:

• Will my station only play music?
• What kind of music do I want my station to play?
• Will there be radio presenters / radio DJs? If so, how many, and how often will there be a radio show?
• What kind of topics will the radio show cover?
• Will the radio show host interviews and if so, what kind?

Have a look at “How to Start Your Own Online Radio Show” for tips on how to choose a topic, then plan, produce and promote your new show. You can find some great tips and tricks via internet radio communities where internet radio hosts share their knowledge. Here are the top 7 internet radio communities to join. Also, take the time to look at what other online radio stations are out there to get a sense of what gap your station will be filling, or what need or audience you’re catering to.  This brings us nicely onto the next step, which is:

Step 2: Brand your station

Some of the first decisions you need to make before starting an internet radio station concern the name of your station and programming. This process should consider who your audience is and the message you want to put across, as well as evaluating what’s already out there.

It’s important to check that your station name or any other elements of its branding does not infringe on existing trademarks. You can usually find free online tools for doing this by putting “[your country] + trademark check” into a search engine. A tool for checking this in the USA can be found on this USA trademark website, while the UK tool can be found on the UK version.

If you’re stuck for name ideas, you can also use a brand name generator like bng ( business name generator ).

Step 3: Check copyright laws

Music copyright laws for your country are another critically important element you’ll need to consider to avoid any legal trouble. If your programming is non-musical (i.e. talk shows, panel discussions etc.) this may not be be a problem. But if you want to broadcast music, you’ll need to look into buying a license. The cost of this varies depending on the countr(ies) you’re operating in, as well as the countr(ies) you wish to broadcast to. Using royalty-free music can cut costs, but this may still involve buying a one-time license. You can source royalty-free music from a number of places, including Youtube, Audio Blocks and Jamendo.  

The Broadcast Law blog contains a lot of useful information and further links pertaining to the legal issues surrounding starting your own online radio station, while copynot.org answers a few frequently asked questions about music copyright – though bear in mind that these laws may apply to the US only. It’s important to remember that music licensing laws can be complex and vary depending on where you’re based, so if in doubt it’s best to contact a specialist legal advisor to help.

Step 4: Get some equipment together

You don’t need a big budget or even very expensive equipment to start your internet radio station. All you’ll need to start off with is a microphone, a pair of headphones, and a registered Airtime Pro station. If you want to build a more advanced radio studio, see our guide: 10 Essential Pieces of Equipment for Online Radio Newbies.

If a relatively simple set-up is all you think you’ll need, a USB condenser microphone like the Rode Podcaster will provide a ‘plug n’ play’ all-in-one package that requires little technical knowledge or setup time. Plug your headphones into the included 3.5mm jack, and you’re ready to go on air.

For those of you planning a more sophisticated set-up you may wish to invest in additional equipment to add more functionality to your ‘studio’. An audio interface like the Focusrite Scarlett range will convert audio signals from regular XLR studio microphones into a high-quality digital output. Any combination of microphones with the commonly available XLR interface will work, however large-diaphragm condenser microphones (LDC’s) like the Rode Broadcaster are best suited to capturing voices.

Adding a mixing desk into your setup will allow you to physically manage multiple input channels, rather than relying on software mixers. Any regular audio mixing desk will function in combination with an XLR audio interface. Specialised ‘for radio’ digital desks offer additional functionality for broadcasters – such as dedicated telephone inputs and on-board effects – but are also expensive.

When it comes to broadcasting software, Airtime Pro makes online radio automation and streaming easy. Once your physical equipment is all set up, we’ve included a step-by-step guide below to quick-starting your station with Airtime Pro.

Step 5: Find news to share

If your online radio station will be news-oriented, you’ll need to figure out a strategy for planning your news items before the program goes live. One way to do this is to sign up the the RSS feeds of all the blogs and news sites that you usually follow and gather them in one place. That way, you’ll have all the material you need in one place when preparing your show.

There are also a few online tools that you could use for this purpose.

• Feedly allows you to “subscribe” to different news and blog feeds, as well as having a feature for creating different lists to organise content.
• Tweetdeck is also a useful tool for gathering content from Twitter, allowing you to enter different search terms and see all the content related to those terms at once.
• Google Alerts works in a similar way, allowing users to sign up to alerts for specific search terms, though these are delivered via email. If you’re running a sports programme, you might, for instance, be interested in news around the topic of football in the UK. All you’d have to do was set up alerts for the terms “football” and “UK”, and Google will deliver news on this topic straight into your inbox. You can also adjust the frequency of these alerts to suit your needs.

Get started with Airtime Pro

Airtime Pro isn’t just great-value internet radio broadcasting software; it’s also super easy to set up. First, you will need to sign up and start your 7-day free trial (no credit card required).

Soon after you’ve done this, you should receive an email letting you know that your station is ready, and inviting you to sign in at your chosen domain.

As soon as you’re logged in, you can start building your online radio station by programming content and adding/selecting DJs and contributors.

Step 1: Set up your station, time zone and user roles

First, you’ll need to head to “settings”, which can be found in the left-hand menu. In the screen that appears, you’ll be able to configure several things, including the name and description of your online radio station, as well as the time zone. This all needs to be done before you can begin programming your station.

At this stage, you’ll also need to input some details about your own time zone, so click on “My Profile” (underneath “General”) in the left hand menu. Here, you just need to click on the last dropdown menu, select the correct timezone and save. Even if your station is set to a different timezone, users can set their own, which allows them to program content and calendars to match their local time zone.

Step 2: Add other DJs or Program Managers

Of course, you may not want to run your station alone. One of the best things about Airtime Pro is that it allows you to add other DJs and Program Managers no matter where they are in the world. The difference between the two is that “DJs” can upload content but only to shows that you’ve assigned them to. A Program Manager can create, delete and edit shows as well as being able to assign DJs to them, but they won’t have access to the system menu.

To add a DJ or Program Manager, head back to “settings”. Select “Users” from the menu to open the “Manage Users” screen. After that, click the “New User” button and a screen should appear for you to fill in that user’s username, password and email. After doing so, choose their user type then click “save”. Once you have done this, this user will now be able to upload music and schedule playlists and tracks to shows that you’ve assigned them to. You can also find information about this step in the Airtime Pro manual.

Step 3: Upload Audio

Once you’ve set up your users, it’s time to get to the good stuff. To begin uploading audio, click to “Upload” button on the left hand menu. In the screen that appears, you can either drag and drop audio files or click to browse your computer.

You can also upload via file transfer protocol (FTP). For your login details and/or help from our support team, you can speak to us through live chat or you can file a ticket in the “Help” menu.

Step 4: Create your first radio show

Now you’ve uploaded some media, you can begin scheduling your first show. Head to “Calendar” in the menu on the left to get going. To begin with, you’ll want to use the weekly view as there won’t be anything in your calendar yet. The daily and monthly schedules will becoming more useful later down the line when you’ve scheduled more content.

On the calendar page, clicking on the day you want to schedule your show will open a window on the left hand side with a series of details about the show you want to create. Here, you’ll need to name the show and then select a time for it to be scheduled. After you’re finished filling in the details, simply click “add this show”.

The scheduler has a lot of complex features, including options for repeats and inputting a live stream, further details on which can be found by heading to this section of the Airtime Pro manual.

Step 5: Make playlists and use smartblocks

Once you’ve set up a show, it’s time to start adding content. One way of doing this is to create a playlist. In your “Dashboard” you’ll see a “Playlist” button in the right-hand side navigation menu. If you click on this, a new playlist should appear on the right-hand side of your screen. Here, you’ll be able to choose a name for the playlist, add a description and drop and drag your uploaded audio files from the dashboard into the playlist. When you’re happy with it, click “save”, and you’ll now have a playlist you can use and reuse for any show you like.

Smartblocks are another handy Airtime Pro feature for building your radio shows. Smartblocks use smart radio automation software to generate playlists based on criteria that you set. To create one, head to the Library and find the ‘open media builder’ button on the right side. Click it and then choose the ‘new’ button. A drop-down menu will appear. From there, simply choose ‘new smart block’. In the screen that appears, you’ll be able to choose certain criteria such as BPM, genre and date range, which will determine what tracks the smartblock generates. For a more detailed look at how to use smartblocks, you can check out our blog post on the Airtime Pro website.

Step 6: Add content to your show 

To add content to the show you created a couple of steps ago, click on “Calendar” at the top of your screen, where you should see your show at the time you scheduled earlier. When you click on your show, a series of options will appear. Click “Add/Remove Content”. This will open a list of scheduled tracks (if you’ve programmed them) on the right side of your screen and your library of content on the left. Find the playlist you made earlier by searching or scrolling through the library and drag it to the right side into your playlist, you can also highlight and drag individual tracks as seen below. Your first show is now ready to go!

Step 7: Customise your radio page

Of course, you will want to customise the look and feel of your radio station to get your branding message across and forge a deeper connection with your audience. Fortunately, Airtime Pro has a responsive radio page that offers a range of customisation options that are easy to implement and will have an immediate impact. For our full guide, see: “How To Customise Your Airtime Pro Radio Page”, which covers everything from branding your station to changing background colours to customising show and station logos.

Step 8: Live broadcasting

Live broadcasts add a great deal of personality to any show. Whether you want to have correspondents on the street reporting from remote locations using their smartphones, or interview guests, introduce songs and broadcast live events, it’s easy to set up and go live with just one click thanks to our Rocket Broadcaster integration.

Step 9: Podcasting

Once you’ve broadcast your shows, they need not disappear into the ether. Podcasting has been on a meteoric streak of late, with 62 million Americans listening to podcasts each week. Airtime Pro offers a built-in podcast feed as well as podcast hosting, and is an ideal platform for managing podcasts and widely distributing them to an ever-growing online audience hungry for on-demand audio content. For further information, check out our guide: “Podcasting with Our Airtime Pro Internet Radio Software is Easy”.