A Little About Pulse

Pulse Radio is currently an internet only based streaming station playing non-stop music which has been selected to allow listeners the opportunity of hearing both their favourites and hopefully some forgotten greats. We offer streams via Shoutcast and Icecast in the following formats: Winamp pls, Windows Media asx, Real Player ram and Quicktime qtl. If you are using Firefox as your default bowser and wish to use our online live player then please install this plugin should you not already have it installed.

Pulse Radio is a NOT FOR PROFIT station set-up by our Chief Executive Mark Carney a local residents of Cheddar, Pulse is a registered company called Pulse Media Broadcasting Limited. It is Marks long term aim to secure funding by means of grants and advertisement in compliance with Ofcom regulations and thereby secure a Community Radio licence for the station allowing it to broadcast in FM stereo complementing its current internet streaming media. The intention of the board of directors is to apply for a community licence at the earliest opportunity thereby allowing for FM (105.0) transmissions via the Fry's Hill transmitter mast above Axbridge.

Pulse Radio has identified a need for such a facility within the local communities of Axbridge, Banwell, Blagdon, Burrington, Charterhouse, Cheddar, Chew Valley, Churchill, Cross, Draycott, East Brent, Lower Langford, Mark, Priddy, Rodney Stoke, Rowberrow, Sandford, Shipham, Weare, Webbington, Wedmore, Wrington, Winscombe and their surrounding areas. The proposed transmission area would include parts of Somerset county council, Bath and North East Somerset, Mendip, North Somerset, Sedgemoor district councils along with the following parish and town councils Axbridge, Banwell, Blagdon, Burrington, Cheddar, Chew Magna, Churchill, Sandford, Shipham, Weare, Wedmore, Wrington, Winscombe.

Pulse Radio aim is to involve both local community groups and schools along with general members of the public within the surrounding area with producing of material for the greater good of all, that is to say both local residents and visiting tourists alike. Pulse has implemented an Executive Board of Directors to oversee all legal requirements associated with an Ofcom licensed station, along with a Management Committee who will help guide the stations day to day running.

The station is run by volunteers and welcomes local budding DJ's, knowledgeable music connoisseurs, community groups wishing to offer services to get in touch. Mark welcomes anyone wishing to help the project succeed in its quest to obtain an Ofcom licence to initially contact him via the contact us page within this website.

One of the key objectives for the station is the involvement of the local community in all aspects of the station, this includes the inclusion of local school students who could utilise the station as part of their school curriculum with regards to media studies. The station will aim to liaise with both schools and collages alike thereby enabling both students and members of the public the opportunity of taking not only a Short Course in Radio Production but also the BTEC National accredited qualification in Media.

The stations internet streams are provided by Sound Media Broadcasting with this website hosted on Sound Media Hosting servers both owned by Mark and provided free of charge for the better of the community. The station servers are based in Germany offering high capacity bandwidth, currently however we have limited the number of concurrent 128kb streams to 10000 thereby allowing us to monitor the performance capacity of each servers CPU load while maintaining quality.

One of stations legal obligation is to the licensing authorities who collect royalties for the music played within the stations broadcast. While the station currently is not required by Ofcom to pay a broadcast license fee it must still pay the appropriate royalties. As Pulse is currently an internet service the cost of these royalties is based on the number of listeners against the number of streams per annum.

There are two bodies within the UK who collect royalties fee's on behalf of Writers, Producers, Artists and Record Labels, these being the PPL (Phonographic Performance Limited) and MCPS-PRS Alliance Limited (The Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society Ltd and The Performing Right Society Ltd).

Pulse operates with the following royalty licence restriction:

MCPS-PRS Alliance Limited

The Limited Online Exploitation Licence (LOEL) covers a variety of small-scale online services. It is available for companies and individuals providing music to the UK public, whose gross revenue from the service is less than £6,250 per year. Operating with 180,000 streams per annum or less up to a maximum 900,000 streams per annum.

Phonographic Performance Limited

The PPL Small Webcaster Licence is for online radio services that generate revenues of less than £5,000 per year and whose annual total streaming does not exceed the streaming limit of 270,000 Performances (ie. one Performance is when one user streams one sound recording broadcast in the service)