We received a note from Tom McAlevey, streaming audio innovator and contributor to RAIN’s annual new-year predictions, alerting us to an announcement scheduled for later today that Radical.FM will be shut down this weekend. Radical.FM is an online radio platform with unique personalization tools for creating non-interactive streams catered to the listener’s preferences. The platform’s technical assets are for sale.
Key to those assets is a product called TALK, which gives users the ability to livestream on the platform, complete with spoken breaks — basically, creating pop-up internet radio stations within Radical.FM which could be “tuned in” by any logged-in user. TALK was launched in September, 2016 after nearly a year of development. In RAIN’s testing we found the experience to be technically flawless, and concluded, “The platform is fun and engaging.” We have long thought that live webcasting could be merged with pureplay streaming to add dimension and increase engagement. We regret to see the winding down of TALK and Radical.FM.
In announcing the shut-down, Radical highlights this video which both illustrates and explains how TALK works:
“We’ve taken all the things old-school radio is great at — like live personalities and concurrent listening — digitally supercharged them for the streaming era, and the response to TALK has been exclusively positive” said McAlevey. “Our platform’s IP incorporates many firsts and trade secrets, but despite our quality, and the support of our users and shareholders, Radical simply lacks the muscle to reach the full potential of this tech on our own.”
McAlevey lives in the Phillipines, where he is building an orphanage.
That’s an absolute shame. I first met Tom years ago, on a chance encounter, when his fledgling enterprise was housed in an beachfront apartment in Venice, CA. I though he was brilliant, with a novel concept. Unfortunately, these days without deep pockets and patience – it’s a real uphill battle. Which just shows, you have to run a bare bones operation, and keep the burn rate to an absolute minimum.