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According to Biondi, Internet Tejano radio has more listeners that
terrestrial radio because it has a different audience.
“We have an elite group of listeners, more affluent and better
educated than terrestrial radio listeners. When we pitch a night
club, we know we may not bring huge numbers of listeners out to
the club, but we won’t fill it with an audience that will sit and
nurse two beers all night,” explains Biondi.
He says the actual penetration of computer users among Tejano
music fans is exceedingly high as compared to Anglos. “Tejano
listeners are better educated and have higher positions in the
community,” says Biondi.
“The bulk of our audience listens to us from
9:00 a.m.
until
3:00 p.m. Our main audience listens to us on the Internet, and
that’s a situation that won’t change until broadcast wireless is
available en masse. Because these are people listening to us on
their computer at work, they are in the higher pecking order. They
have more money and more spendable income. Because they are
listening on the Internet, they do not punch in and out of
different stations. Instead, they spend an average of four to six
hours listening to us. Terrestrial radio is lucky if they can hold
a listener for 30 to 45 minutes.
“If they listen to us for six hours straight to a station they
have selected, you have an audience that is very loyal. Most of
them are listening to us at their desk with their headphones on as
opposed to terrestrial radio playing in the background. During the
day, 80 percent of our audience is comprised of repeat listeners.
We gauge that from tabulating audience response, how our listeners
get in touch with us. I once asked all our disc jockeys to pull
all the e-mails and notes they received and we marked the areas
they originated from on a big map of the
United States. We filled up that entire map,” says Biondi.
But BNetRadio’s listeners are not just restricted to the
United States.
The station’s audience is global. “We had a caller from inside a
tank on operations in Afghanistan who was listening to us while
going on a mission to kill people. He picked up our broadcast on
the tank’s Internet system. And we’ve heard from listeners
stationed with a M.A.S.H. unit in
Baghdad
and Tikrit. It is just like you see on the TV show. They move to a
new location and the first thing they do is set up tents. Then
they set up a satellite dish for the Internet. Then they put up a
pole and put a speaker on it to play the broadcast.
“We had a soldier and his father who communicated through our
radio station. The son was in a M.A.S.H. unit, his father was in
Seattle.
“Another time we received a call from a payphone outside an
Internet cafe in
Baghdad.
The caller was live on the air with us. All of a sudden, we heard
an explosion in the background. The caller said, ‘Hang on; I’ve
got to check this out.’ You could hear him as he ran down the
street. When he came back he said, ‘That’s okay, it was just a
shoulder-mounted missile,’” says Biondi.
All four of the armed forces radio networks put BNetRadio on their
military satellite. That’s in addition to the Internet feeds in
Iraq
and Afghanistan. “We’ll have a soldier call in on an
SAT
phone. We’ve instructed our DJ’s to expect a delay on
SAT
calls. One soldier tried three times before he got through because
the DJ kept hanging up before the delayed conversation came
through.
“We are getting more and more e-mails about the need for what we
are doing. Not only are we providing listeners access to Tejano
music, but we have become a conduit for the artists themselves.
Many Tejano artists listen to the station. If a listener calls in
with a question about a song, that artist may call in with the
answer. Sometimes I come in to work and there’s Little Joe’s
truck parked in front of the studio.
“When you think of Tejano music, you don’t usually think of
Billings,
Montana as a hotbed. But we get calls from there on our 1-800 line
about CD’s by upcoming artists. BNetRadio provides access to
expose new quality talent to the world,” explains Biondi.
How many Anglos listen to BNetRadio?
“We have a core base of 10 to 15 percent Anglo listeners,” replies
Biondi. “We even have some Latinos who are not fluent in Spanish
who listen in to the station to learn Spanish.
“We have lots of listeners in the
Midwest, especially in the Chicago area, Wisconsin, Ohio, and
Michigan. There’s a group called the Windy City Ladies who send us
e-mail every day. One of our disc jockeys was once a Chicago DJ.
“Our station has listener clusters in
Seattle. Our listener base is very heavy in
California,
Tucson, Phoenix, Albuquerque, the tobacco growing areas of the
Carolinas,
and, surprisingly, in
New York City and Philadelphia,” explains Biondi.
“But most surprising are the listeners we have in
Tokyo,
Japan—which
points to the universal appeal of Tejano music. At 4:00 a.m. CST,
there are 300 to 400 listeners in
Japan.
How do we know this?
We track routes in Internet IP addresses of users. Our listening
audience in
Japan
could be stationed in the military or be Americans working for
manufacturing companies, but they’re on their Internet listening.
“We have listeners in
Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. Because we are heard worldwide,
our DJ’s have to think globally. They can’t say it is raining
outside because it may be sunny in Tokyo. Nor can they give the
time; that’s why they always say it is 30 after the hour. Nor do
they say good morning or good evening. They have to get the big
picture that you’re talking to the world,…to el mundo.
“I can get our broadcast on my PDA anywhere in
Houston. Thanks to new cell phone technology, you can get it on
your Blackberry. Eventually, you’ll be able to pick it up
on every major highway. The technology is friggin awesome,” says
Biondi.
Among the other sites offering Tejano webcasting are:
www.tejanofm.com
and
www.tejanomixes.com, although the latter is temporarily under
construction until after New Year’s Day. Twenty types of Latino
music—but not Tejano—are available at:
www.batanga.com.
Another webcast with a strong emphasis on Tejano is
Toledo,
Ohio’s
own
www.kaboomlatino.com. This new station webcasts out of the
Spitzer Building with mixed Latino tunes, but with a Tejano
emphasis.
Kaboom Latino’s DJ’s are the six Longoria brothers and their
father, Rey. They have a long tradition in the Tejano industry as
members of Los Aztecas—a Tejano band started by Rey decades
ago. Their Tejano roots takes them to
Dallas on Dec. 31st to play a gig at the Longhorn
Saloon. |
