Supporting Halloween Radio

During the months of August, September, October and November 13thTrack.com Halloween Radio receives around 50,000 unique visitors PER DAY. Recently I remembered to check my "business" emailaddress. I found that I hadn't checked since June! I had 4,000 emails to wade through. What I hadn't realized was that Live365 (the site that streams my broadcasts) had killed many of my broadcasts due to an expired credit card. I'm charged around $10 per month per broadcast. I wasn't paying attention (or paying) and lo and behold the broadcasts we're done with. So the other night when I downloaded the emails I found many of them from listeners who were wondering where the broadcasts went. In a panic I reinstated the "Halloween 4 Kids" broadcast (at a cost of $120 per year) and found that once I had paid and was able to get into the broadcast that Live365 had removed all of the MP3s I had uploaded! Devastated I uploaded those MP3s still on my PC and spent another couple of hours looking for the CDRs where I have stored the majority of the MP3s for all of the broadcasts. I finally gave up and went to bed.

During the night I had a hard time sleeping. I started thinking about the time it is going to take uploading the MP3s, putting them into a playlist order, and above all PAYING for it on top of it all. A while back I had a sponsor for 13thTrack.com Halloween Radio. I don't now. A while back I was selling a decent amount of CDs there. I don't now. So other than the love of the music, why would I want to put those broadcasts back online at my expense?

I've found that most of the emails I receive are wanting something. Few are thanking me for having the site. "Hey, what the heck (swear word removed)! What happened to the broadcast! This sucks!" is what I tend to get from the listening public. This does not make me feel warm and fuzzy.

My buddy Jay Moores took my Pumpkinland CDs, Fleshrot and our DARK RIDE CD and made cool flash broadcasts out of them. Even though these make my hosting $ go up I feel better spending the money there at not towards building Live365's empire. I've received the OK from one Halloween music artist and plan to ask more if they'll let me stream their music.

I've been advised NOT to set-up the ole PayPal send-me-some-money donation link. I was told it sends the wrong message. I feel like the public service is great, but what about a little help from the listeners?

If anyone is reading this that cares, what do you all think?

Please advise,

Mark Harvey