I just added the Radio Station I’m active in: Radio Centraal - MusicBrainz
I have a few propositions/questions abut these kind of entities:
-As radio stations play a rather important role in the world of music, I wonder: wouldn’t it be worth adding a “Type” for this kind of entries. My suggestion would be to use “Broadcaster”, as this would cover any other related entities, such as Television stations.
-I also wanted to add people/artists making radio programs in the relations. But it’s a bit vague what to use. The options are: producer / engineer / creative position / A&R / signed
None of them seem to fit properly for a radio program maker. Especially because sometimes the “artist” entity can be a group of people. (For instance in my case: we have a program ran by 3 people, which also performs as a band, and there have been stand-alone recordings too). An option I considered was"Signed". Is that an acceptable option? The description doesn’t match in any way, however.
I think the closest match would actually be “producer”, at least for the way our station works (the programs are fully created by the one(s) presenting & engineering the program. There is no one telling us what to do.) However, commercial broadcast stations, may have a presenter which essentially doesn’t do little more than speaking in the mic. A technician/engineer does the technical side, and a producer/redaction works behind the scenes managing the content of the broadcast. But maybe for a presenter, the role “signed” is a correct fit?
-What about material that was made live on the radio? Our station does automatically record everything, so technically I could add such as stand-alone recording. But I feel like for some reason there should be some way to add live broadcasted material, regardless of it being recorded or not. Exactly the ethereal nature of a broadcast, makes it interesting to register in a music database. Similar to how events can register a performance, even if it wasn’t recorded. Or can a live broadcast simply be regarded an event? As essentially that’s what it is, the only difference is the way the audience is reached.
-What about broadcasts which do not feature live (musical) performances. They are actually also live events. The music is mixed, the presenter speaks, interviews are taken, etc. Would that be eligible to add as event on MB?
-As non-live musical broadcasts would feature “recordings” rather than “artists” or “works” in case (non live) music is played, wouldn’t it be an idea to introduce the ability to also add “recordings” to the setlist (currently only artists and works can be listed, if I’m not mistaken)
-And as in my first point: wouldn’t it be an idea to add “Broadcast” as a Type of event?
-If a broadcast can be considered an event, should we work out a sort of style guide for it? My POV is a radio station where every program maker is completely responsible for the content, which is a creative process. As such each program is an event with a limited length (a defined start and end,) having a clear creator, a concept, and selected content or self-created content (a “setlist”).
But is a continuous commercial radio, without programs having clear start and end (or only at some moments,) to be considered the same? Or should there be some requirement to consider a broadcast an event which can be entered on MB? (I think by definition an event always has a start and an end, which rules out something continuous.)
-Additionally, for events, I would suggest a label relationship: Broadcasted by
At this very moment, there is an outdoor event going on, which is being broadcast on the radio, but there is no relationship to enter this properly. The only possible relationship is “Presented by”, but it’s a collaboration with the radio, not organised by the radio.