Last week marked the shuttering of WOXY, the legendary broadcast-turned-internet ratio station. While WOXY has survived previous trials, and may again rise from the ashes, it strikes me as blow to free internet radio, made by real live human beings.
One of the main selling point for fans of WOXY was something novel in the world of net radio--DJs. Especially DJs that chose their own music. I read this week that Pandora may account for 44% of all internet radio listening if payments to SoundExchange are a fair measure. While there are real people categorizing the music for Pandora, your individual playlist isn't touched by human hands. Their Music Genome Project is certainly fascinating, but many DMPulse listeners seem to have found the service to be cold and predictable.
Mark R. Collins, writing for the Huffington Post, stands in support of WOXY and poses the question: "if Woxy.com, one of the first stations to move to an online-only broadcast, and arguably one of the most popular internet radio stations, isn't able to hack it even with commercial backing then what does the future of online radio hold?"
Here at DMPulse, we've had a great seven days. Perhaps the best week listenership-wise in a few years. Surely we have benefited from WOXY's demise as listeners are searching for a new indie rock station. I think WOXY listeners will find something to like here, but Mr. Collins' question still remains.
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