Barnabas Road Media announced a program aimed at stations not yet broadcasting on the Internet.

It said it will provide a 20 kbps stream at no charge for six months. If at the end of six months the station has not simulcast at least 1,000 audience hours of listening during the sixth month, it said, the stream continues to be free until the audience exceeds that amount of hours of monthly listening, for up to an additional six months.

“Radio stations will still have to provide their own personal computer dedicated to their online broadcast, copyright fees for music rights and of course at least a DSL connection to transmit their broadcast to our media servers. At least there will be no stream hosting costs while the station builds its online audience,” said Paul Gathard, president of BRM.

He added, “There is not much more a stream hosting service could do to encourage broadcast radio to embrace the Internet as a means of delivering its product to an ever-growing online audience.”