How to open the radio

If you want to become the "mouthpiece" of your city, region, or country and launch your own media, one option is to open your own radio station. But you need to be prepared for the fact that this is a very costly venture. Most often to open a radio station attract an investor. In this article, let's look at a step-by-step plan for launching a radio station to understand what the chances of success are for beginners.

How to open a radio station in your city: step-by-step algorithm

A radio station provides a great opportunity to get your message out to your target audience. Here's what you need to do to make it happen:

• to register a legal entity;
• submit an application to the Main Radio Frequency Center;
• develop a broadcast frequency,
• to get through the contest;
• submit an application to Roskomnadzor;
• to register radio as a media outlet;
• obtain all necessary licenses and certificates.

Also:

• to rent a space and renovate it;
• to develop a broadcasting program;
• procure and install equipment;
• enter into agreements with a radio center or create your own radio center from scratch;
• conduct an advertising campaign to promote and popularize the new station to the masses;
• to hire employees;
• to think about a broadcasting program.

How to open your own radio: registration, license, permits

The registration process consists of several steps.

Legal entity registration

Any business should start with registration. First of all, it is necessary to register a legal entity. Usually the radio is formalized in the form of an LLC with several founders. 

Documents for opening a radio

It is necessary to determine the coordinates of the transmitter location (latitude, longitude), broadcasting radius and power of the radio device. These data should be transmitted to the Main Radio Frequency Center.

After that, you can collect the documents for opening a radio. The easiest way to do this is through subsidiaries of the Main Radio Frequency Center. Otherwise, you will have to coordinate the documents with the research institutes of the Ministry of Defense and military units.

How to set up a radio station: frequency development

This is the technical side of the issue. If within the range (87.5 - 108.0 MHz) there is a free frequency left, you can occupy it by obtaining the conclusion of the State Radio Frequency Center. But if there are other applicants for it, a tender is announced. If there is no free frequency, you have to develop it yourself.

The cost of selecting the operating frequency rating varies depending on a combination of factors:

• The product of antenna gain by transmitter power. Different power ranges have their own prices (44,700 rubles for 1 KW-10 KW, 19,400 rubles for 100 W-1 KW).
• Broadcast Region. If there is electromagnetic interference in your area, the cost may be increased up to 50%. For border areas, frequency selection will also cost more due to international coordination.

NIIR will make calculations and issue an invoice with the final cost. It is necessary to coordinate your frequency with special purpose radio services (primarily military), if you do not use the services of GRC subsidiaries.

The cost of harmonization also depends on the region, the presence of interference from the use of special means and studies that will be conducted to establish the compatibility of radio equipment before your station goes on the air. The minimum price of the issue is 30,000 rubles. 

Competition. Competition and license fee

The amount of the competition fee is regulated for each individual region. It is not possible to give exact figures, as they change regularly. For example, in Moscow the amount of the tender fee is measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars. For the Northern Capital, the amount is more modest and is "only" about 100,000 dollars.

For cities that are not capitals of constituent entities of the country and the population does not exceed 200,000, there is no competition. Here, it is sufficient to pay the license fee. Usually it is 30 minimum wages, but it increases to 50 minimum wages if the broadcasting zone of your station extends to neighboring regions or covers CIS countries. If you have established a company jointly with foreign individuals, the price of the issue also increases to 100 MROT.

If you intend to set up a large radio station, the broadcasting of which will affect several territorial units at once, i.e. go beyond the boundaries of one city, then you must apply to the central office of Roskomnadzor in Moscow. If one city is enough for you, you can go through a similar procedure at one of the local offices that exist in each federal district.

It is obligatory to study in detail the rules of the application and the contents of the package of documents. 

Registering radio as a media outlet

The next step is to obtain a certificate of registration for the radio channel from the territorial or central office of Roskomnadzor - it all depends on the radius of broadcasting. Within a month, the radio station will be checked for the uniqueness of its name. The certificate is valid for a year, during which time you must start broadcasting.

Recent licenses and documents

To obtain a radio broadcasting license, a program concept for broadcasting must be prepared and submitted to Roskomnadzor with a cover letter. Another application for an operator's license is also submitted there.

Also Roskomnadzor will issue you a 10-year permit to use the radio frequency specified in the conclusion of the Main Radio Frequency Center. Finally, the last document that you will receive from Roskomnadzor is the your radio's transmitter registration certificate.

This completes the registration of your radio.

Creating a radio broadcasting program

Next, the entrepreneur has to choose between signing a retransmission contract with one of the existing stations or creating his or her own program. But if you are a beginner, keep in mind that developing your own program involves a series of trial and error, and you are unlikely to have the money for such expensive experiments. The leading stations have a long-established program, built according to a certain algorithm, tested hundreds of times in practice and adjusted to the audience. It sells well, which means that it will provide a successful start to your business.

First you have to win over your audience, make a name for yourself, and "build up your hand" at rebroadcasting, and then you can order the creation of your own program. As for the cost of retransmission, different radio stations have different pricing policies. The payment will average 6,000-7,000 rubles for every 100,000 people who live in the city.

How to come up with a name for radio

The first thing to think about is the name. It should be short, catchy and memorable. Your name - is the business card of the radio station. It will be repeated many times daily on the air, so it should evoke positive emotions in the listeners.

Focus on your target audience and choose a name that can catch their attention. You can even conduct a small survey among potential listeners who will help you choose a name for the radio station. This is a very useful method: not only will you get a name, but you will also attract loyal listeners who will enjoy participating in its creation and standing at its origins.

Equipment procurement

Any radio station needs two studios: a recording studio and an on-air studio. If there are several radio stations in a company, one recording studio is enough for all of them. The equipment (acoustics, equipment, furniture, installation) for a modern studio of a large radio station will cost up to 6,000,000-7,000,000 rubles. 

For smaller studios, you can buy the necessary equipment for 500,000 roubles. Together with acoustic processing, the price will rise to almost 1,000,000 roubles. For radio stations in small towns you can do with a couple of computers, specialized software and household recording and playback devices. Of course, this budget option is only suitable if your station is only one in the city, and listeners have nothing to choose from. 

In addition, you will need an antenna, radio transmitter, mast and feeder. The radio should be operated in a secure, heated room and under the protection of specialists. The mast can be arranged with local telecommunicators. The main thing is that it should be installed on an elevated position, then the signal will be excellent.

The cost of the transmitter varies depending on the manufacturer within the range of 350,000-600,000 rubles. The antenna system will cost approximately 130,000-200,000 rubles. Not only the equipment that you will use on your radio station, but also the entire hardware and studio complex as a whole must be certified. To do this, you need to contact a certification center and act according to their instructions.

Radio advertising

You should not forget about the advertising campaign. You can't count on listeners who happen to catch a wave and stay with you forever. A good advertising campaign - is the key to successful market entry. If absolutely everyone knows about you, you will soon have advertisers, and they are the main ones source of incomethat ensure the longevity of the radio station. 

You can use advertising on other radio stations and TV, contextual advertising on the Internet (you will need to create a website of the radio station), outdoor advertising, advertising on transportation and bloggers.

How much does it cost to open a radio station

We have already listed the main list of expenses above. The most costly items are the purchase of equipment and payment of competition fees for large cities.

If you plan to broadcast in a city with a population of 400,000-500,000 people, opening will cost you at least 3,500,000-4,500,000 rubles. Advertising costs must be added to this sum, otherwise there is a great risk of being left without listeners. 

Setting up a large radio station in Moscow or St. Petersburg can cost tens of millions of roubles.

How much you can earn

Now let's try to calculate the approximate monthly income of a radio station that broadcasts to an audience of different reach. The figures are valid for those radio stations that are not inferior to the top ones in terms of broadcasting quality. For the basis of calculations we take the average cost of advertising on the radio - 4.3 rubles / sec, taking into account the filling of 100% advertising airtime (900 minutes per month). To calculate the payback period, we take a base budget of 100,000 rubles and monthly expenses of 80,000 rubles.

The cost of 1 second of radio advertising, taking into account the size of the audience, is calculated by the formula: audience×average cost of 1 second of advertising time/ average audience share. 1 advertising output per hour of 3 minutes for 10 hours of airtime=30 minutes/day or 900 minutes/month.

Monthly income is calculated according to the formula: 900 minutes/month×the cost of 1 second of advertising (which was calculated in the previous column)×60 seconds.

The payback period is calculated by the formula: amount of investment/net monthly profit. The latter figure can be obtained by subtracting monthly expenses from the total monthly income.

With an advertising cost of 1.88 rubles/sec and an audience of at least 1,500 people, the payback period will be exactly 12 months. For a smaller audience, advertisers will not pay such a price for advertising. It will have to be reduced, which means that the payback period will increase. If the audience is less than 1,500, the profitability of the project will depend on the efficiency of sales and the degree of filling the monthly advertising block (the same 900 minutes).

The more listeners you attract, the higher the cost of advertising time will be and more advertisers will be interested in your radio station, which will positively affect the payback period by shortening it.

We have outlined the key steps in opening a radio station, the basic costs and approximate revenues. The list of these approximate costs does not include monthly expenses, a contingency reserve and the cost of an advertising campaign, which ideally should be approximately equal to the opening costs.