Among the never ending list of tasks that comes with running your own online radio station is creating your own website. It's not surprising that a core component of running an internet radio station is having a website. It is an internet radio station after all. If people can't listen in via their car radio, then they need somewhere else to listen — your website becomes that place.
There are two clear routes to creating a radio station website — you can either build a custom website or use a website builder.
Costs of creating a radio station website
The costs of creating your own internet radio website varies on the path you choose. Let's take a look at an average cost breakdown for the two most popular methods for building your internet radio station website - via a site builder or developing a custom website.
| Expense Type | Site builder | Custom website |
|---|---|---|
| Design | $0 - $500 (Optional) | $500 - $2000 |
| CMS (Content Management System) | $0 - $100/month (Optional) | $15 - $100/month |
| Hosting and Domain | $10 - $25/month | $10 - $25/month |
| Developer costs | $0 | $1000 - $15000 + ongoing costs |
| Total Costs | $50 to $650 | $1,500 to $17,000+ |
You can really see how the costs can vary dramatically when it comes to building your own custom site for your internet radio station. A basic, single-page custom site could be done for around $1,000 whereas a fully-fledged, multi-page website with many different content types could cost you north of $15,000.
A custom website might not be financially viable for every station, so let's start with the cheaper option: using a website builder.
Use a radio station website builder
Web builders have exploded in popularity in recent years. There are many solid choices out there for you to pick from, most notably Cargo, Wix, Squarespace and ReadyMag.
Site builders let you build your own website by dragging and dropping elements. It's a very intuitive and easy way to build a site. You don't need any technical knowledge at all. Just drag and drop text, panels, images — you name it. You can make truly beautiful sites with a web builder. In fact, they are used heavily in certain industries like the restaurant industry.
The main downside of a web builder is the lack of total control. You can definitely make a beautiful site with a web builder. There is no doubt about that. However, it is unlikely that you can make your website look exactly like that design you have in your head.
Additionally, your station website is most likely going to be built on top of rich data that is dynamic in nature. This can be difficult with traditional site builders where you would normally need to go in manually to update which show is live, or update artist details and the like. This is where the Radio Cult embeds shine.
You can drop any of our embeds, like one of our players or a schedule embed, into your web builder with a copy and paste. Boom, your site updates in real time as you run your station and update details.
The main selling points of site builders are the ease of setting up, the low startup cost and the user-friendly nature of them.
You may to have pay an ongoing fee for the site builder itself, but this is normally far more affordable than the initial cost of building a custom site. Additionally, you are free to update your site whenever you want. You are in charge. There is no need to contact any developers or designers to make any changes.
Create your custom internet radio website
If you want a website that 100% matches your vision, that's unique, that you have full control over and is an example of what your station stands for then a custom website is a great choice. There are many beautiful custom built station websites out there. Some of our favourites are Oroko Radio, Voices Radio and AAJA Radio.
A custom website can look exactly how you want it to. You have full control over the design, the colour scheme, the interaction and everything else. Your website is essentially your digital home so a custom website can be a great way to showcase your station.
However, the biggest downside to a custom website is also the most obvious — the cost. If you don't have the requisite web design and engineering knowledge (or a friend who is willing to work on the cheap!) then expect to pay top dollar.
The other complication is updating your site. If you get your radio station's website built by an external party, then you will most likely need to contact them any time you want to make changes. This means that your initial cost may be followed by multiple smaller payments as time goes on.
Radio station CMS
CMS stands for Content Management System. Simply put, CMS platforms are tools where you can update your radio station website's content and have the changes propagate through to your website.
Think of a news site, say the New York Times, they're not releasing a new version of their website every time they write a new article. No, instead content is created and updated in a CMS tool which the website reads from whenever a user visits it.
Internet radio websites rely heavily on CMS platforms. Radio station websites generally display a lot of data and can get complicated very quickly.
Station websites usually display their schedule in one form or another. It is well known that dates are one of the hardest things to deal with when it comes to developing software. Unfortunately, station data utilise dates heavily. All of your show data - like what show is playing when - is built on top of dates.
Replicating date style logic in a traditional CMS platform isn't easy. It's just not a use case that they are optimised for.
The time-based nature of radio can add a lot of complexity to a site, especially when you get to dealing with complicated repeating rules like shows that are on every third Thursday of the month, every two weeks, or every weekday. The complication of calculating this in your own code or trying to emulate calendar functionality in a normal CMS cannot be overstated.
Luckily, you can use Radio Cult as a CMS. Our CMS can be integrated natively into your custom site, you can use our data to power your site and style it in any way you wish.
Alternatively, if you choose to go with a site builter then you can use one of our handy embeds. They're as easy as copy and paste. They're connected to your Radio Cult data so they update in real time.
Conclusion
Whichever route you go down will most likely be dictated by your budget and your design. The good news is that there is no right choice and you can switch between the two paths whenever you want. While it may take some effort to switch, you aren't locked in forever.
Whichever path you choose, Radio Cult has your station covered. Whether you want to use our CMS to power your custom site or drop in one of our embeds to keep it simple - we can handle any use case.
If you're looking for advice, or if you even want us to build your station's website, then reach out! We are always here to help independent and community radio.
As always, keep it locked.