Wirewaves In The News
KSN - Channel 3 - Business Beat
August 11, 2009
MULVANE, Kansas – It is a way to market to the millions. Consumers listened to more than 6 billion hours of Internet radio last year and a company in Mulvane hopes to bank on that.
Entrepreneurship can be addictive -- once a successful venture is created the habit needs to be fed. Bryan Pulliam embodies that theory. He started Postal Presort from scratch in 1985, and then retired about five years ago.
“Now I found a way to come out of retirement,” said Bryan Pulliam, owner of Wirewaves. “I landed on this opportunity a few months ago and started my own Internet radio, or audio streaming company.”
Internet radio stations are for anyone with something to sell or promote. Custom content is streamed over a company's Web site.
Bryan can't think of a business or community that wouldn't benefit from his service.
“We prepare all of the content, we do the interviews, we help them name the station, we basically do the whole process for them,” he said.
From its building, Wirewaves expects to run hundreds if not thousands of Internet-based radio stations. They will control the content, but they'll give their clients the ability to break into programming if they need to.
Imagine the power of a police chief being able to cut into content to be able to broadcast an emergency to help the community. Or a local high school kid who wants to learn how to do play-by-play for a football game can actually call it in from his cell phone. That is the power of this new concept.
The government's efforts to create a coast-to-coast broadband network could change the face of 'broadcasting' and Bryan believes that most radios will become Internet based.
He is competing for some federal stimulus money to create community radio stations.
“If it comes to pass, it will play a part in the educational element of the federal broad band expansion program,” he said.
The start up costs for an Internet-based radio station is somewhere between $4,000 and $10,000. Maintenance and content updates will cost less than $2,000 annually. Pulliam is confident that the bottom line will more than pay for the service.
“They are intended to capture the attention of a visitor to your Web site, and hold them on that Web site a little bit longer, which translates into better sales,” he said.
His company's biggest challenge now is helping clients understand the concept of Internet radio.
He's convinced that they are on the cutting edge.
“We have yet to find another company like us doing this the way we do it,” he said.
Bryan expects to grow the company to the point that it will be attractive to sell and then he'll take on that next challenge.