Since Y-Not began broadcasting at ynotradio.net, Landow has paid all fees - about $1,000 a month, including streaming, royalties and promotion - out of his own pocket, supported by a part-time job at radio trade magazine FMQB. He earns no salary and all of the DJs work for free. Ideally, Landow would like to get sponsors or partner with another organization, but doing things like selling ads isn't part of his DNA. Recently the station has started taking donations to defray costs.
In a perfect world, Landow would be back on terrestrial radio. He still has a soft spot in his heart for the FM dial. Not to mention, the FM listeners.
The number of people tuning into Y-Not fluctuates, but on a recent Wednesday morning, 93 were listening. He admits it's not a huge number and it's a far cry from the average 384,000 weekly listeners logged by Arbitron in Y100's final years. But Landow is philosophical. "It's just nice to know someone's listening."
Y-Not broadcasts via Internet radio network Live 365, which calculates the popularity of a station by measuring listener hours. As of Monday, Y-Not had logged 21,361 total listening hours.
"To get a station over 1,000 or 2,000 is pretty difficult," said Chris Houghton, online-marketing manager at Live 365. Y-Not is the fourth- most-popular alternative station that broadcasts through Live 365. And Y-Not differs from the three more popular stations because it caters to a Philadelphia audience, not a global one.
Landow mans the mic Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. until he is relieved by another DJ. Y-Not is on the air 24 hours a day with a live host curating and introducing music from 9 a.m. to 10 or 11 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. On Sundays and the off hours, Landow puts the station on autopilot.
"Realistically, I would like to have my living room to myself one day a week," he said.
Sound salvation
