The "Two Vixens And a Wolf" Radio Show

By Bixyl Shuftan

There's a new radio show done by three residents of Second Life: Two Vixens And a Wolf. The vixens would be Svetlana Snowpaw (Sarah Golem) and Roxy Noir-Snowpaw (creatureofthenight2011 Resident). Greigh VonGottreich (Greigh Dingo) is the wolf. Svetlana has a blue and white fox avatar while Roxy's is purple and white. Greigh's coat is a simple black. The show appears on the AllFurRadio stream, an Internet radio frequency aimed at fans of furry science-fiction and fantasy. I met up with the new media stars at their station in Rabbit Valley, and they invited me to take a seat.

On the question on how the radio show got started, Svetlana told me, "I want to say I was the one who initially pitched the idea to the All Fur Radio station owner, Markus Damone, when he had asked me if I wanted to DJ for him again since he was reopening the station for a third time and I had done DJing for him back when it was first open years ago back in 2007 I believe? Well anyway I was excited to do that, however after over ten years and four computers later I had lost a lot of my music and wanted to help out anyway I could. So It didn't take long for me to ask Roxy, my mate at first if she would be comfortable doing a talk show, and she agreed, but we both knew we needed a bit more, so we got approached Greigh about joining our little venture to which he seemed delighted by as he had recently got a new studio mic and wanted to put it to good use."

Asked how the first days went, Greigh responded, "Here's what happened from my angle. Initially, I was anxious and outright nervous as I never did anything like this before ever. I've performed DJ'ing in the past but never talked on the microphone. Some folks call me DJ Deadmike or The Jukebox because of this sort of thing. But once we started off with the show (initially with the test shows), I felt more comfortable once I've warmed up to being on the air for that moment."

Roxy spoke of what they have, "We have different segments throughout the show, Greigh's 'The List of Greigh' which he talks about incidents that are realistic and can range from bizarre to hilarious. Svet has a news-broadcast update entitled 'The Good, The Bad, and the Furry' which there are all sorts of articles from social media to real news that we discuss. My segment is a media review, somewhat like Ebert and Rupert did in the 90s. We discuss media, music, film, and even upcoming media releases that we are interested in. We have done trivia games where two of us go against each other, and even have storytelling moments where we jawjack about life, the community, and interesting topics. We never discuss religion, politics, or race since these tend to be topics we hear in the real world. Everything about our show is to bring a smile or to brighten one's day.

"We have had one guest thus far on the show and we ended up have a great reception with the audience even bringing in our segments with 2 The Ranting Gryphon. The show is all about having fun and smiling even when the world around us seems to be falling part. We are constantly revising the show and this is something we enjoy doing as we want to relate more to our audience. Greigh's segment is my favorite."

Greg broke in, "The fun part is that the show is flexible, given with what we're working with from time to time too." Svetlana nodded, "Yes so if our work gets in the way we can flip around the schedule of how the show flows, seamlessly and get stuff reorganized on the fly."

I asked more about their interview with The Ranting Gryphon, whom is one of the furry fandom's personalities. Greg told me, "The way our first guest came about was by surprise by the boss. We didn't expect anyone wanting to do a guest session with us at all. Plus it was a neat treat to have 2 onboard with us." A nearby friend of theirs, Shoshi Darkpaw, remarked, "God you should have seen excited Svetters was." Greigh grinned, "Heard nothing but 'EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!' for at least 15 minutes." Svetlana kept a straight face, "Oh yeah, apparently our boss, Markus Damone, knew 2 The Ranting Gryphon from years back. And so it wasn't to difficult for us to get 2. However I recently got a hold of Uncle Kage to do an interview with us or be a guest on our show some time after AnthroCon.  Getting guests is kind of like fishing, you just have to put your line into the water and see what bites." I asked when "Uncle Kage" (another personality of the fandom) apperance on the show would likely be. Svetlana answered, "It's still up in the air, we are to speak with him after the con, but we are trying for late July, but we have booked the Youtubers, Moms of Furries for August 6th.."

I asked how often Second Life is discussed on the program. Their answer was at the moment, not much, "... we dont get out much. We talk about our personal SL stories and pasts." The did say they would read the Newser more often for stories.

And this being live radio, I asked about their funniest bloopers. Svetlana grinned, "Oh let me tell you. ..." Greigh commented, "Two words: Murphy's Law." Svetlana continued, "Well yeah since the show is relatively new we are still working out bugs and everything that could happen did happen. The best one though ... down stairs someone was cooking and set off the smoke alarm, which was audible on air. So we decided to go to break after joking that we may be in danger." Shoshi, who was still nearby, chuckled, "Oh, I wish I heard that! I would have been dying!" Svetlana continued, "So our breaks are usually 1-2 songs long with possible ads and then we come back. Well we resumed the show like normal after two songs and five minutes into the next segment. I was talking, and then looked over and noticed we were no longer broadcasting, to which we immediately hooked back into the server and apologized to our listeners and joked about the situation and actually had to ask our listeners, 'What was the last thing you heard?' "

Svetlana moved on to another blooper about concerning a rookie mistake, "The other blooper came from the purple fox across from me, Roxy, when she was discussing how new she was to the fandom and said 'I'm the baby fur' while we had 2 Gryphon on air with us, to which we all just went 'Noooooo!' and laughed because being that she is somewhat fresh to the fandom she doesn't know all the terms and we had to immediately explain to both her and the listeners that was the WRONG terminology." "Et Tu Murphy's Law?" Greigh asked. Svetlana responded, "It's something you just can't make up." When I asked if the furry fandom had it's own term for newbie, Svetlana answered, "I haven't found one that I really like other than 'NewFur.'"

And then there were their reactions to bloopers, Svetlana saying, "We have an  inside joke during the show, because we all manage to slip up now and again, however when we start dropping F-bombs like B-52 I slam my fist on the desk and go 'This is a family show DAMNIT!' and it puts us back in check for the most part but the show is still a PG-13 show." I asked how creative they could be about using otherwise clean language to describe something that wasn't quite. Svetlana answered, 'Well there is a lot of sexual innuendo which is not planned, but both Greigh and I are smart-asses and sometimes cannot control what comes out of (our) maws." So who at least had some control? Roxy answered, "That would be me. I end up biting my lip and blushing uncontrollably as I have the thoughts and just start randomly giggling. I end up yelling at both the vixen and wolf as they make me blush the whole show. But that just shows even though I am innocent, I'm not completely."

And what were their future plans? Greigh answered, "At this point, we're wide open to things in the future. Depending on how things turn out over time. We're going to also target on attending cons as best we can as well in the future." Svetlana told me they'd be doing a live show at a panel at a con in Philadelphia from August 10-12, "Also our show lands on Christmas Eve and New Years Eve. So we will definitely make a Christmas Eve Special as well as a New Years Eve special, I will have to talk to our boss, Marcus, and do a extended four hour show to bring in the New Year."

We would talk about a few other things, such as goings-on in Second Life, and eventually, it was time for me to check out another event, so I bade them good day and left the radio station.

"Two Vixens and a Wolf" broadcasts every Monday from 5-8PM (8-11PM EST) and rebroadcast on Wednesday at the same times. Besides it's station location in Rabbit Valley, it has a Facebook page and a Twitter account.

https://www.facebook.com/2VAWallfurradio/

https://twitter.com/2VixensandAWolf

Bixyl Shuftan

GoSpeed Racer, Trader Whiplash, Speak on Rising Cost of Internet Radio

By Bixyl Shuftan

For Second Life Radio stations, at least the official ones which pay licensing fees or have them paid for by a sponsor, things have gotten much more expensive.

Late last month, GoSpeed Racer of KONA Radio, noted for playing for events such as those at Bay City, issued a notecard to her friend list, including personel in the SL Newser staff, "The future looks bleak for many small web casters based in the United States. The current royalty rates negotiated back in 2006 are set to expire on 1 January 2016. The rates are expected to increase drastically and the special provisions for small web casters will expire." Not long after, she sent a second notecard with another adress for her radio station in case the first one went dark.

It was about this time that Krypton Radio's blog wrote about the issue (http://kryptonradio.com/2015/12/30/internet-radio-just-got-a-lot-more-expensive/). "Krypton Radio, the world’s most popular geek culture radio station, has just been hit with an operating costs increase, and it’s a big one. It’s our music licensing – due to arbitration by the United States Copyright Royalty Board between SoundExchange and music licensing agencies like BMI, ASCAP and SESEC, and the super-giant internet radio companies like Pandora and Spotify, our own licensing fees just doubled."

Wanting to hear directly from owners of Second Life radio stations, I managed to get in touch with GoSpeed, and one other,  Trader Whiplash of T-1 Radio. GoSpeed and I met at the KONA building, and discussed the predicament her and other stations face.

Bixyl Shuftan: "So when did you hear about these regulations in question?"

GoSpeed (gospeed.racer): "Well, it's been in the background for a few years but most

webcasters assumed that we'd be taken care of by the powers that be. THe proverbial S*** hitting the fan came in mid-December. The new rates were announced and the special provisions for the little guy were not carried forward. We are being treated the same as the larger corporate webcasters."

Bixyl Shuftan: "Why do you think there were no separate rates for smaller broadcasters?"

GoSpeed (gospeed.racer): "The consensus was that there was no one to speak for us. Just to get heard requires hiring some one to advocate for us (lobbying). keep in mind most small webcasters operate at break even or at a loss financially. Some of the larger stations like Radio Paradise or SOMA FM do make a profit but just enough to make payroll and not much else."

Bixyl Shuftan: "Yes ... You mentioned that KONA would have to increase it's listenership by quite a bit to make up for the extra expenses."

GoSpeed (gospeed.racer): "Yes, and that's a bit of a dichotomy in and of itself, let me explain. ... We used to be licensed under StreamLicensing.com. Stream Licensing was like a CO-OP for smaller webcasters. They negotiated with the record labels to get an affordable rate. StreamLicensing in turn took stations as subscribers and charged them fees. (They) had 10 million listener hours annually, and about 2,500 stations. Those 2500 stations shared those hours. So under that plan KONA payed $24 a month for up to 3500 hours a month. If we exceeded that we paid a higher rate. Under the new rates for 2016, our new rates would have gone up to $60 a month, and the rates jumped astronomically above that. Another Stream Licensing station who averaged 11,000 hours a month calculated they would pay about $300 a month in fees. We simply could not have justified paying a higher amount."

Bixyl Shuftan: "Did you make the money back by broadcasting ads?"

GoSpeed (gospeed.racer): "Yes from time to time. We had one sponsor who covered most of our expenses for a while, but they recently dropped. I also DJ from time to time and that brings in a few dollars."

Bixyl Shuftan: "Sounds like between your a sponsorship drop and the rate jump, well, quite a financial pinch."

GoSpeed (gospeed.racer): "Yes it is. Many thousands of webcasters have signed off or will do so in the next few months. To be honest $24 a month wasn't a burden to pay out of our own pockets. But much more than that was too much."

Bixyl Shuftan: "Of the 2500 stations, how many do you think are in danger of going silent?"

GoSpeed (gospeed.racer): "Stream Licensing had 2500 stations, it's below 1000 now. How many Second Life based stations are there? Difficult to say but I would tag it somewhere in the 50-100 range. Most of them are 'pirates.' A few do pay royalties. England has the PRS, Canada has the SOCAN. Those are licensing bodies for collecting royalties."

GoSpeed (gospeed.racer): "So you may ask what our station is doing now about licensing?"

Bixyl Shuftan: "Yes, what is it doing now?"

GoSpeed (gospeed.racer): "As a US based station, using PRS or SOCAN isn't an option. But there is an entity in Belgium called Radionomy. They provide stream hosting and cover licensing fees for their streams. They are covered by SABAM Belgium who collects the fees from Radionomy. The catch is that I have to use their servers, and I have to run their advertising. That's how they generate revenue to pay the royalty fees. Additionally they have a requirement on listener levels to remain on their servers. By 6 months I have to have a monthly listener level of 4000 hours. I currently run about 2500-3200 a month."

Bixyl Shuftan: "So the new minimum came about as a result of the rate increase?"

GoSpeed (gospeed.racer): "The new minimum is Radionomy's stipulation. They are only interested in hosting stations that have a certain level of concurrency. More listeners equals more money for them."

Bixyl Shuftan: "So if the minimum isn't met, you're in danger of being dropped by them?"

GoSpeed (gospeed.racer): "If our station fails to reach that level we get de-listed. We can reapply but we'd be forced to select a new name and get a new URL. Starting over is difficult. Just getting the word out In Second Life is tedious when you change streaming URLs. We've been through a few of those this past year. It takes a while to get listeners back."

Bixyl Shuftan nods, "So your listenership has been going up in the past year?"

GoSpeed (gospeed.racer): "It's been steady. We've tried advertising on podcasts and blog feeds but the results were less than stunning. But then again as I mentioned, the station costs were not to egregious so the listeners levels were not a major problem."

Bixyl Shuftan: "So what is your next move?"

GoSpeed (gospeed.racer): "To be honest we're flummoxed. Second Life does not have a universal media industry. Getting the word out to a large audience is difficult. Searching for anything in the viewer is confusing. SL media is like the SL landscape, open, barren lands and isolated and insular islands. We're trying to get up with Draxtor and see if we can get on his podcast. He does a have a fairly decent reach. I suppose contacting you is another way to get help. Get the word out. We're desperately need not only listeners that may read your paper, but information to contact those who can we can make deals with. 'Play our station in your estate, mall, club, and we'll give you sponsor mention on our stream.' "

Bixyl Shuftan: "Any promising leads there?"

GoSpeed (gospeed.racer): "Not yet. Inertia is a definitely a thing here in Second Life. Often I will arrive at a location and discover them play a Club 977 or a 181FM stream. I contact them and let them know I am an SL based radio station and that we'd be a better fit. You know, one SL entity serving another. We either get no response, or OK, we'll try, or we like this better. When I point out how my stream is superior content wise and that they'd benefit I am met with indifference. But every now and again I meet success."

GoSpeed had to leave at this point, though did say more information could be read on Kona's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/KONAStream/ . She would later say Stream Licensing had posted their new rates, and they were double what she had been paying before.

Trader Whiplash and his T-1 Radio are best known for being the radio stram for Relay for Life events, such as the seasonal weekly "Relay Rap" meetings and of course the Relay Weekend. Contacting  him, he had his own perspective.

Bixyl Shuftan: "How might the new regulations about Internet radio affect your stations, and others, in Second Life?"

Trader Whiplash-Ballinger (trader1.whiplash): "It's not regulations. It's new cost. We used to pay .0017 cents per song. Now its .0022. The agreement was worked out between (the) copyright board and large streaming companies like Pandora. Our cost has nearly doubled (as well as) for most stream stations."

Bixyl Shuftan: "How will this affect nonprofit stations differently from those that are not?"

Trader Whiplash-Ballinger (trader1.whiplash): "Obviously we are non-commercial, so we fall under a different pricing scheme than big commercial stations. But regardless our costs are going to go up.  I imagine that some stations may reassess and close. Regardless, the cost per listener for royalty payments will go up ... Has gone up."

Bixyl Shuftan: "How might this affect T-1 Radio during the Relay?"

Trader Whiplash-Ballinger (trader1.whiplash): "It's gonna get REALLY expensive (chuckle)."

Bixyl Shuftan: "Ouch, so it'll be eating into the donations?"

Trader Whiplash-Ballinger (trader1.whiplash): "Donations? No...  T-1 Radio provides stream services to Relay For Life as a doantion in kind."

Bixyl Shuftan: "I recall GoSpeed Racer saying her station might survive, but with a significant jump in viewership."

Trader Whiplash-Ballinger (trader1.whiplash): "Which could be a death knell. .. the more listeners the more cost."

Bixyl Shuftan: "Kripton Radio, at least the writer speaking for them, felt while they would probably weather the storm, they felt this could keep new stations from starting up."

Trader Whiplash-Ballinger (trader1.whiplash): "It will. I (have spoke) to many independent DJs and they are worried."

Bixyl Shuftan: "Do you see the regulations causing these rate spikes being reversed anytime soon?"

Trader Whiplash-Ballinger (trader1.whiplash): "When do costs EVER come down? I think the net result though is that we may see more independent DJs say the hell with it and stop paying."

Bixyl Shuftan: "So Second Life could end up being a quieter place, as far as music streams go?"

Trader Whiplash-Ballinger (trader1.whiplash): "That remains to be seen.  What is certain is your favorite station is going to be spending more money bringing your music to you.  Hopefully our fans will be aware of this.  I hate to make it sound like its all about the tips, but the next time you tip a DJ L$50  think about how much it cost him or her to provide that music and how far your 2 cents goes toward their cost. Sorry, 20 cents. Lost a decimal there."

Bixyl Shuftan: "No problem. ... Did you have anything else to say on the matter?"

Trader Whiplash-Ballinger (trader1.whiplash): "I guess that covers it all. ... T1Radio has always been a hobby for Nuala and I, and its our honor and privilige to provide coverage for Relay For Life and the other virtual activites supporting the American Cancer Society.  It is unfortunate that the cost increases will affect so many of our colleagues, but for the time being we plan to continue to provide great classic rock and blues to our listeners."

So it seems for licensed radio stations in Second Life, at least those based in the United States, the future just got a little more expensive. Only this time, the problem isn't Linden Lab, but the US Government. How this will affect the choices of music fans in Second Life, and elsewhere on the Internet, remains to be seen. But the predictions are not good.

Bixyl Shuftan