I have a new found love for radio. After recently learning that many of our customers here at PTZOptics are radio stations, I did a little research. I found out that Radio as a medium is still very much alive and well! Podcasting is something I understand. In fact, our team has recently built a live streaming/podcasting studio in our new marketing office. But the idea of broadcasting on live AM or FM radio. It intrigued me… Dare I say scared me…

live streaming camera for radio

So our team reached out to a local radio station to see if we could help them host a special live broadcast that included live streaming to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Twitch. After learning more about radio, I found out that radio station owners are quite happy how well radio is performing today. According to a Nielsen Total Audience Report based on first-quarter 2019 data, 92 percent of U.S. adults still listen to radio each week. The idea that radio still plays such a huge role in today’s fast-paced age of social media helped me connect the dots about what’s really going on in the digital streaming, podcasting, and social media arenas. 

Accompanying radio’s resilience in communications today is the massive growth of live video streaming. Many traditional media outlets (including radio, TV and print outlets) now incorporate live video streams as part of their day-to-day content. Over the past few years, live video streamers have grown into professional producers of content for outlets such as YouTube and Facebook. According to research compiled by Inside Radio ,”the new data also validates the growth of streaming audio with half of all adults now also using use their smartphones to stream audio.”

To help our local radio station reach a larger audience, we live-streamed the one-hour radio show to LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Twitch. It was incredible to see how excited everyone at the radio station became as they saw their very first show being broadcast on social media. Live streaming a radio broadcast has its challenges but unlike other broadcasts, I have been part of, radio stations already have the “audio” side of things taken care of. So all we really had to worry about was setting up lights and video cameras because the radio station was easily able to give us an audio output from their mixing board. 

During the broadcast, we had a very interesting conversation about it’s like to be in the radio business today and how radio stations are using social media to their own benefit. Accompanying radio’s resilience in communications today is the massive growth of live video streaming. Many traditional media outlets (including radio, TV and print outlets)  now incorporate live video streams as part of their day-to-day content. Over the past few years, live video streamers have grown into professional producers of content for outlets such as YouTube and Facebook. According to research compiled by Inside Radio ,”the new data also validates the growth of streaming audio with half of all adults now also using use their smartphones to stream audio.” 

From this information, we can make a strong case that radio is certainly positioned to offer the best of both worlds. Radio has an existing audience in place, with the ability to live to stream their broadcasts on the social media pages they already have active. Live streams also can help stations tap into another advertising revenue stream. Live video allows advertisers to reach not just listeners but also viewers. Stations can target local and national companies to invest their advertising dollars into a medium that has multiple ways of reaching potential customers.

From a technology perspective, in our case study we used the PTZOptics Producer Kit with a simple NDI (IP Video) networking setup. All of our cameras were powered over ethernet and our video was available via both SDI and NDI. All of the audio was coming into a Focusrite USB audio interface that we used with an audio output from the radio station’s mixing board. We also set up some LED broadcast lights to help light the set that was only set up for radio from a camera standpoint.

With all of that in place, we also used two LiveU systems. One LiveU LU-600 backpack was used to broadcast behind the scenes access to the radio station during commercial breaks. The second LiveU Solo system was set up to broadcast the output of our PTZOptics producer system. In this way, we were able to switch between two separate RTMP video streams in the cloud using GoEasy.Live. I should mention that using GoEasyLive allowed us to send two high-quality RTMP bitrate video streams but also redistributed those streams in the cloud reducing our need for high upload bandwidth speeds.

radio host live streaming with ptz camera

If you are interested in learning more about live streaming a radio or podcast show download our tip list here: https://ptzoptics.com/radio. 

Until next time,

Paul Richards

Chief Streaming Officer

Learn more about live streaming radio and podcasting stations

• See how we WCHE 1520 AM radio starting live streaming on Facebook and YouTube here.
• Check out our technical guide on live streaming radio shows here.
• 5 things to consider before live-streaming a radio show here.
• The StreamGeeks review live streaming a radio station here.