Mardi Gras Radio to debut' in 2007

Covering the Business, Events & Fun of the Carnival Industry

Online News of the Carnival Industry

"Get the whole Story....We pick up, where mainstream media leaves off !"

Mardi Gras Radio to debut' in 2010

Ponchatoula, La...... Thursday, Dec 09, 2009 - The dealings of Mardi Gras are about to take another leap forward in January of 2010 as Mardi Gras Radio.com continues to prepare to it's launch next year.

The new radio station will initially Webcast during it's first year of operations, and eventually broadcast in the new Low Power HD Radio format to reach the entire New Orleans metro area, including Slidell, Hammond, Baton Rouge, and up into and over to Mississippi. The format for the station will be interviews with music legends, monarchs, captains, and other groups as well as, of course, the music of carnival year around!

The station will also broadcast from live Krewe or club events, Main Line and Indian affairs, and bring you brand new music for Carnival, as well as, the musicians that author such tunes. Also on the format will be the monthly Top 40 Countdown of the best Brass bands, and schedules on where these bands are currently playing.

The for-profit station will run an advertiser supported business model and from week to week showcase the many aspects of the Carnival business community and its needs. The station will Webcast on Mardi Gras Digest.Com and Mardi Gras Radio.Com

Other programs have already been worked out, with more to follow, to keep the station fresh, lively, and a treat to listen to, year around, regardless of your location.

For those who are not familiar with Mardi Gras Radio, it has been in the works for quite some time. Started as a weekly Webcast to test the waters in 1999, the then Webcast, was a way to attract visitors to the site of Mardi Gras Coconuts.Com. However, something happened that was not anticipated, the small test Webcast found a following and in the late half of 1999, was one of the first Carnival Webcasts on the internet with some type of program following. Tourists and others from outside the New Orleans area, began to listen and the bandwidth soon outstripped the program's funding and brought the programs untimely end.

The trend had already been revealed however, and a way was needed to carry the program and pay for the much needed bandwidth the LIVE streaming Webcast would need.

The introduction of the website, Mardi Gras Digest in 2000, made the perfect choice for the program, and the talent , programmers and others now have the means to produce, and Webcast the program to the Gulf Coast region and the nation. Mardi Gras radio will become the "Sound of Carnival," as it takes shape and the "Voice Of Carnival" once it does..... Mardi Gras Radio.Com was launched late last year and the website portion is already getting people ready for the start of operations on January 17, 2010 at noon. The station is now physically ready to come up and begin webcasting, but some last minute bandwidth problems stalled the programming until the software could be bought and installed to better meter the bandwidth.

After the launch, the next big hurdle will be to install a T-3 telecom node in the studio so the Webcast can be piped to the HD transmitter which is to be built soon or leased from one of the local stations. The last piece to come together will be the OC-3 line that the station will use to reach over 150, 000 listeners at the same time, all over the world. As the station grows it will install additional OC-3 lines to expand it's simultaneous capacity until it can reach 1 million worldwide.

Mardi Gras Radio was again put on hold, this time not because of the technology, but because of the economics! The Internet station seems to be doomed to struggle to find a balance for the principle and the place of operation. The station is looking to solve it's bandwidth problems before making a total commitment to the architecture. "We're looking as hard as we can, said Mr. Clark, but I think operational bandwidth is the problem, and we're talking sheer cost here, not any hard technical problem that could stop us! When we do start webcasting, we should know everything we need to in about 6 months!" We have received our broadcasting license from ASCAP and January 17th, 2010 we'll hit the internet running.

Home