The Seattle Times reported today that Nathan Hale High School’s radio station has received the Village Voice award for best high-school radio station in New York.
A Seattle station wins a New York award? How can that be, you might ask. Web-broadcast is the answer.
Station manager Gregg Neilson said, “… with 40,000 listeners each month by Internet, this is the future and the present in broadcasting.”
The station, KNHC-FM (89.5), broadcasts at 8,500 watts with a $350,000 annual budget. It operates with a staff of 50 students and four adults.
The web-broadcast requires that listeners install Abacast software, a distributed streaming technology that uses Windows Media format.
The server uses a distributed broadcast system, where a client (one listener) may also be a server, redirecting the stream to another client (a different listener).
The Washougal, WA firm (Portland suburb) touts their system as being more scalable and less expensive than “unicast” streamings like Real Server and Windows Media Server.