Beach House Radio or BHR as they call themselves, promises to bring you "the best Chillout, Funky House and acoustic summer music to help you relax & de-stress no matter what time of the year", which to a large degree fits its music perfectly.
Another internet only, 100% music, no DJ's, no ads station, Beach House Radio relies on donations to buy it's bandwidth. It does also offer branded merchandise where I assume part of the profit would support the station. They even have a "Funds raised this month" caption to inspire people to donate
BHR delivers pretty heavily on the chillout, in fact I wasn't sure for a track or 2 whether I'd accidentally switched my wifi radio on to stream from a Ministry of Sound chillout cd. The tracks seem to be pretty mainstream when I've tuned in, but they do publish a schedule showing slightly differing music mixes, so there maybe newer unknown track played at other times. This all sounds good, but it felt a little too comfortable, there was no surpise at liking a track you've never heard before. I guess that's the trade off, known chillout favourites makes for few turn off moments, but few exciting moments too. They do include some station ID jingles every couple of tracks, but more strangely they also seem to just pause for 20-30 seconds between the occasional tracks. I've not worked out why yet, but it seems to well placed to be a connection dropping
Connecting through the wifi radio can take a few tries to get a solid connection with an occasional pause to re-buffer the music. I faired less well on their website with it all seeming to load, but no music on a number of occasions. That's a shame as the player gives you some interesting options, it shows a couple of tracks either side of the current one and allows you not only to click on them to see more details but also to buy them
The supporting website is basic, but fit for purpose (if you'll forgive a redirection to the parents companies url). Basic details about the type of music are included, some attempt to give background or news about the artist and a new forum for people to talk to the station producers.
I've yet to make up my mind on this one, I've a feeling it could be one of those things that grows on you. But if, as they say on their home page, they continue to struggle to get donations they may close before they get a chance.
I give them a tentative TURN-ON rating for the connectivity issues
Another internet only, 100% music, no DJ's, no ads station, Beach House Radio relies on donations to buy it's bandwidth. It does also offer branded merchandise where I assume part of the profit would support the station. They even have a "Funds raised this month" caption to inspire people to donate
BHR delivers pretty heavily on the chillout, in fact I wasn't sure for a track or 2 whether I'd accidentally switched my wifi radio on to stream from a Ministry of Sound chillout cd. The tracks seem to be pretty mainstream when I've tuned in, but they do publish a schedule showing slightly differing music mixes, so there maybe newer unknown track played at other times. This all sounds good, but it felt a little too comfortable, there was no surpise at liking a track you've never heard before. I guess that's the trade off, known chillout favourites makes for few turn off moments, but few exciting moments too. They do include some station ID jingles every couple of tracks, but more strangely they also seem to just pause for 20-30 seconds between the occasional tracks. I've not worked out why yet, but it seems to well placed to be a connection dropping
Connecting through the wifi radio can take a few tries to get a solid connection with an occasional pause to re-buffer the music. I faired less well on their website with it all seeming to load, but no music on a number of occasions. That's a shame as the player gives you some interesting options, it shows a couple of tracks either side of the current one and allows you not only to click on them to see more details but also to buy them
The supporting website is basic, but fit for purpose (if you'll forgive a redirection to the parents companies url). Basic details about the type of music are included, some attempt to give background or news about the artist and a new forum for people to talk to the station producers.
I've yet to make up my mind on this one, I've a feeling it could be one of those things that grows on you. But if, as they say on their home page, they continue to struggle to get donations they may close before they get a chance.
I give them a tentative TURN-ON rating for the connectivity issues
3 comments:
Hi guys. Lee from Beach House Radio here. Thanks for the review, it's great to get some good feedback on our good (and bad!) points. I will be updating the playtlist soon, unfortunately for the three of us involved, other work which pays the bills has had to come first recently. We are trying to sort out the pause problem with our stream provider and the problem with the player loading but not playing. Anyway, hope you continue to drop by and listen and should you have any comments, feel free to drop me an email at lee@beachhouseradio.com. All the best. Lee.
Thanks Lee, like I said in the review, the content is great, so if you can get your provider sorted, the station should do well.
I've been onto them this week and they are not sure what could be causing it. We have added a suggestion to the bottom of the player screen to redirect people to the direct link which opens in their default media player.
We've increased the Simultaneous listeners this week as well so there should be no problems accessing the station.
Post a Comment