From a radio standpoint, North Carolina is average size. There are 536 licensed AM and FM stations. About 351 of those have web sites [after I deleted the dead ones]
+-------------+--------+ | username | vcount | +-------------+--------+ | CharlotteNC | 349 | | NULL | 23 | | editor | 5 | +-------------+--------+
And for the country as a whole
+----------------+--------+ | username | vcount | +----------------+--------+ | NULL | 7231 | | editor | 4629 | | WesternMA | 433 | | CharlotteNC | 359 | | TheJerseyDevil | 286 | | Devo | 160 | | mazzonem002 | 149 | | 3tooz | 120 | | jbi001 | 101 | | fhiggins | 84 | | briand75 | 58 | | Floridave | 21 | | Robrrt | 19 | | SumItUp | 19 | | RadioListener | 13 | | janderson021 | 8 | | gweldar | 8 | | foyle | 7 | | Linda S. | 7 | | salubrious | 7 | | snolly605tg | 6 | +----------------+--------+
and since July 1st
+-------------+--------+ | username | vcount | +-------------+--------+ | CharlotteNC | 350 | | NULL | 5 | | editor | 3 | | WesternMA | 2 | +-------------+--------+
My guestimate of the time involved to clean up the state with about 350 items was about 15 hours or about 20 per hour. When you’re new, it probably will take longer.
Testing stations generally follows the 80/20 rule – that the first 80% of the work is done with 20% of the effort. Since this data is so out of date, it’s probably more like 50:50. I learned a few things by doing the state by myself as an ordinary user, and streamlined the process. This cleanup has nothing to do with streams or programming schedules – just the right web site for this station and “is it generally still accurate?”
Here is the updated Needs Review page
You’ll now see the domain name right underneath the call sign – either link will take you to the radio station. It’s semi-important to watch to see if the domain “jumps” to something else. If froggy1093.com becomes 1093wolf.com, it should be updated. As long as the redirect is in place, people will still find the real web site, but eventually froggy will retire.
The Google Searches and Wikipedia link have been moved onto this page to make research easier if you find that something is wrong.
About 50% of the stations – you’ll just click the link, the web page comes up, it’s still the same station, the web site is obviously still maintained, and the format hasn’t changed. Those take 30 seconds on the outside to do.
About another 30% will have “issues” – the web site has moved, the format has changed…
The last 20% require “deep diving” to fix. The web site has been abandoned and comes up with a fake page or no page at all. A page comes up but has a 2005 copyright date and nothing has been updated (may indicate the station was sold and this is an old web site). Wikipedia is a good starting point to see if the station history explains the possibly derelict web site – but don’t take Wikipedia as truth, just possibly useful information.
The “who verified what” is muddled at the moment and needs work – it was designed to say that someone verified that the stream is working, not that the web site is current. From here on, that should become accurate:
General observations about radio from having thoroughly looked at every web station site for my home state over a period of a few days:
– Spanish language radio is catching no traction at all. Immigrants from Mexico “remit” most of their earnings back to Mexico to avoid paying US taxes and to pay off their “coyote” for getting them across the border. They have very little disposable income, so nobody wants to advertise to them, except immigration lawyers
– sports and religion are rapidly squeezing out everything else
– Nostalgia and Oldies continue to upgrade to more contemporary music formats
– EVERYONE has apps now. I really probably do need to start tracking that and making it easier for android and iphone users to find stations they can use with an app. How many apps would you load onto your phone that can only receive a single station?
Needs Review now defaults to “Check Website”, which is the simplest thing to do – fixing the ones the scanner detected takes a long time and is too much to expect from a beginner.