News about Dash Radio crossed my transom the other day, as the growing internet radio operation announced that it secured $8.8 million in seed funding.
It’s interesting to see this sizable of an investment made in pureplay internet radio operation that isn’t attached to an on-demand service, like Spotify, or a personalized service, like Pandora. Dash is true radio in the sense that it’s stations are curated, programmed and real-time. Everyone who tunes into a Dash station at 3 PM hears the same thing, just like a terrestrial broadcast.
Dash first came on my radar three years ago when the long-running East Village Radio announced that it would return to web broadcasting on that platform. I listened to Dash for a while after that, mostly tuning in to EVR and its metal and punk station Anarchy Radio via my Sonos. But in the intervening years both stations disappeared, so I gradually stopped checking out Dash. (I still don’t know what happened to EVR, though one of the station’s co-founders is still a principal at Dash.)
Dash’s complex of stations has grown to about 75, including ones curated by Guns N’ Roses, or apparently by the estates of Issac Hayes and Rick James.
This approach reminds me of Sirius/XM, especially since Dash stations, like the satellite provider’s music stations, are commercial-free. It’s also a lot like AccuRadio–owned by Radio and Internet News founder Kurt Hanson–which features dozens upon dozens of stations touching upon even very niche genres, like World Fusion jazz. Unlike DASH AccuRadio does have commercials, but in my experience they’re fewer in frequency than either Pandora’s or Spotify’s free tiers. (And I’m reminded I need to write about AccuRadio one of these days, too). Dash and AccuRadio also have better sound quality than SiriusXM–even Sirius’ internet streams.
Since DASH is commercial-free, and doesn’t even have display ads on its website, I always wondered how it made any money. With the investment news I learned that it serves 10 million monthly listeners. That’s a lot of data to serve up gratis.
I found the answer in a 2016 RAIN News interview with CEO Scott Keeney. He indicates the company makes money through sponsored pop-up stations. Build-A-Bear Radio is probably one of those.
Keeney also lays out an ethos that is pretty close to ours here at Radio Survivor, that gets at why we particularly love broadcast-style radio.
“You see all these services that call themselves radio that aren’t radio in the sense that we mean it,” he explained. “They’re playlists, or mixtape generators or playlist generators. less personalities. It’s not a live community listening.”
