Selecting the right equipments for Starting a radio station.

There are essentially two kinds of equipments that are required for starting a radio station business.

1. Studio Equipments

2. Transmission Equipments.

If you have been planning to start a radio station, choosing radio station equipments would be amongst one of the first few thing that needs to be done. Here is a list of important pointers for any one planning to buy radio equipments to start a radio station business -

1. Choose an established name in the field of radio station installations.

2. Try to first find local buyers in preference to importing the equipments. Importing entails excise duty which may be as high as 40% in many countries and you may also find it difficult to get your equipments serviced after the sale in case of imported equipments.

3. Choose one company to provide solution for your entire work flow and forget installation and maintenance worries.

4. Ask for product demonstrations from more than one seller.

5. Study the warranty terms and insist for written terms.

6. Opt for annual maintenance contract with the company at least for the first year.

7, Ask for the details of the local or nearest service representatives.

8. Never buy any equipment till you receive your license.

9. Pay the full amount only after installation and some days of satisfactory testing.

10. Do not hesitate to bargain. This could translate into considerable savings that you would have never imagined.

These days, the functions of compressor, tape decks, CD players, mixers and several other studio equipemtns has been practically replaced by software programs. Most of the professional radio station are now switching to Personal computers to broadcast from their studio. This if you are planning to start a radio station you can replace many of the equipements with more versatile softwares.

My parting advise to entrants in radio station business:

a) if you can replace an equipment with a software program it is always worth exploring.

b) Make you comprehensive business plan before spending a penny on equipment or otherwise

c) Be prepared to persevere for atleast 3 months without any immediate results.

Bhaskar is a start up consultant with 5+ years of experience of helping several start ups. He specializes in formulating and executing radio station business plan and has authored several books on this topic. Download his *FREE Ebook on radio station business plan titled - "Essential Financial Planning for Starting a Radio station" at http://www.familypsalms.com (*Only limited Free Copies available)

Related News: