I dumped my Shoutcast listing a few months ago. They rank the stations by the amount of listeners which makes it tough for stations to gain any ground in their listings.

The funny thing is when I first started to broadcast here, I would get up to 8 listeners and then it dropped to 0 and stayed there. I think RadioTime (TuneIN) is the way to go.

That's just my experience's, your mileage may vary.

I have to go with Reapper as well. However being on iTunes was a big plus. I could not have gotten on their directory if it was not for the SC directory. Being on SC has its disadvantages and those are the "Bot streamripper" as apposed to manual streamripping aka TuneIn Pro. The bots grab your information from the SC directory and then stay for hours even weeks at a time ripping from your station and then sell the service or add the music to Mp3 search engines which have ads and allow for Downloading. The bots will take up to 20 slots where as the manual streamripper takes one at a time and most folks (I say most) will rip a few tracks here and there while listening or overnight while asleep. So being on SC will gain the worst type of streamrippers the type that will cause damage to your station and blocks real listeners.

Also the SC directory is buggy as well. I have my genres as Classic Rock,Prog Rock,Hard Rock. On SC I'm just Hard Rock (Ouch).

Best way to get your station out is get on Radiotime (Now Tunein),Streamfinder,iTunes,Nobex Radio Companion,Audiorealm,BBN Network.

Also try and get your friends to Facebook your station and promote locally as well.

So just how does one go about dumping SC and getting your monthly LC fee reduced, seeing SC is crap anyway?

One word of caution you may be removed from any mobile app dependent on the sc dir like TuneWiki,Android Online Radio,XiiaLiveLite,Winamp,MediaMonkey,Yourmuze. Check the agents used to listen to your station OFTEN before removing yourself from the Shoutcast directory.

Yes I'm thinking about dropping Shoutcast too. When the site wasn't live most of my listeners appeared to come through Shoutcast now looking at the stats it seems that is no longer the case. I can't see a way to remove it from the dashboard I assume you would need to contact Brandon.

If you've already got a listing, I don't see the sense in dropping it....There are several radio apps out there that rely on Shoutcast listings in order to do what they do....It can't really hurt to have your name out there.

started having my station listed on shortcast a few weeks ago. listeningship has somewhat improved. first time in life my station peak level went over the listners cap. if it gose over the cap a few more times. I may have to raise it later on

Nice to hear Chris!!

I don't know about TuneIn, it would be great to get an idea how many listeners you get through there. Any ideas ? Anyway my experience with Shoutcast is the same as Reaper, its great to start with, last summer when Loudcaster first went live I got most of my listeners through there. Now though despite the fact I'm regularly getting double figure listenership I'm lucky to get 1 on Shoutcast. Don't know why that should be the case, maybe Shoutcast listeners are simply not loyal and/or many are stream rippers who just get the music and leave.

I looked into dropping Shoutcast but found I would have to drop TuneIn as well to save money.

I really don't get any more listeners through Shoutcast except the occasional smartphone user and that is only because I advertise that you can do this. 90% of all my listeners is through iTunes. I have several loyal listeners that come back. I don't know if people are just not using their directory anymore and just using TuneIn and iTunes? It may be something else either way I'd like to know why as well.

I got an email the other day that was for Shoutcast's app for the Android OS. While this is good news, I hope it preforms better than some of the other streaming apps I use. Lately, TuneIn has been cutting out and re-buffering way too often.

It's one of the options now for new sign ups.

I use XiiaLiveLite (FREE) to stream Shoutcast on my Android phone which is a Samsung Sidekick. I've noticed as well that TuneIn his been acting up even on my Roku when I added it as one of my channels. My station didn't even come in on Loudcaster's setup with my logo, but because I use to use KWD and they obviously allows my FTP site that I only use for re routing my .pls file still works and that allowed my station to be tuned in by using that link listed a little differently than Loudcaster's link. This makes me wonder is Loudcaster using a separate server just for RadioTome not associated with the mp3 (Shoutcast) or AAC+ (Shoutcast) or Flash media server. And when I come in with my Roku when listening through Loudcaster's link I don't see a change on the dashboard. But if I tune in on my link routed to the Mp3 server (Shoutcast) I see the change. So with that in mind we could have 500+ TuneIn listeners and never know it wither way.

Real Album Rock
http://thelegacyrocks.24ex.com

I would not waste my money paying to be in the SC directory unless you have a huge amount of listeners coming from it. At least until they change how they list stations. For now i am happy with our Loudcaster's listing in SC. It does generate listeners.

I strongly recommend that 2 things before getting listed to SC. 1, build you listeningship youself first by promoting your station offen. 2. wait til your you listening caps is doing good or poor for at 2 months and then give it a shot in getting listed.