State of the Station 2020
Before I begin with the State of the Station for 2020, I would like to wish everyone reading this my best regards as we get through this difficult time. Stay strong, be smart, and be kind to one another. We will get through this.
Greetings and thank for you taking the time to read the State of the Station for Radio Whirlwind for 2020. Every year going forward, I plan to release these blogs to let people know my overall thoughts on how we are doing as a community and as a radio station.
Last year, I was hoping to get Radio Whirlwind up and running but sadly I did not see it through. I will be honest, the idea of rebooting and starting up the station again has been frightening for me. There would be times when I would want to start working on the site and even just getting a stream running again so people can listen via TuneIn or another other internet radio application or apparatus, but I would never find the motivation to do it. However, over the last few months, I have seen various members in the Pokémon community along with old Radio Whirlwind community members wanting to support and get our station up and running again. As a result, I am hoping to see through a soft relaunch of Radio Whirlwind by the end of the summer, with a website launch in the fall. If I can plan everything right, Radio Whirlwind will have a full launch on what would be our sixth anniversary since we started the station up in 2014.
I want to be honest though, one of my biggest concerns that has made me hesitant to bring back Radio Whirlwind comes down to copyright laws and regulations. Since we stopped broadcasting in 2016, laws have changed which may make our station more of a risk to operate. While we may operate from Canada, we want to ensure that we are examining these risks and taking responsibility if we do get told to shut the station down. I am more than happy to pull the plug to ensure the safety of myself and the station if it comes down to that. My hope is that I can continue using Radio Whirlwind as an archive for Pokémon music and sound, while creating an anchor point for artists in the community to share and promote their work. When the website goes up, my hope is that we can use the website to help point listeners to support the artists that are streaming on the platform along with links to official Pokémon albums and merchandise from around the world.
With that in mind, Radio Whirlwind can come back and become better than what it originally was. My hope with the station is to use it as a platform to help share and promote our community, rather than host it. Over the last few years, many members in the music and podcasting community have created incredible events and collative projects that allowed people to get together in ways they never thought they could. It is amazing to see all of this happen and I am hopeful that Whirlwind can be used as an asset to help promote and spread awareness of these amazing and talented individuals.
Radio Whirlwind, on its return, may start off as just a radio station, but I am confident to use its platform for more than that. With services like YouTube and Twitch, Whirlwind can expand to allow for the community to express their work without being restricted. Radio Whirlwind will be part of a network that I am calling The Whirlwind Network, or WhirlNet for short. WhirlNet will focus on the same fundamentals as the station but allow us to brand out and do more with our name. WhirlNet will be something that I will diving more into in 2021 as this year will focus on more of a soft relaunch of the station first.
WhirlNet will allow us to host our own in-house content such as Broadcasters for a Cure and WhirlCast. This is a huge step for the station to grow and become more. My desire is for WhirlNet to be a stepping stone within the Pokémon community so that amazing content creators can have their work shared in new and exciting ways.
In summary, here is what you can expect from Radio Whirlwind as we move forward:
Late July – an update regarding all the music that you can find on stream will be posted. Content will be rolled out monthly following the soft relaunch. Some music that was featured during our 2014 – 2016 run may not be featured on the station right away and or will reappear in the future.
August – the soft relaunch of Radio Whirlwind, this will only be the radio station and it will only be streaming through internet radio streaming websites during this time or through our partnership with Radio Nintendo.
September/October – The first version of our new website will be launched.
Spring 2021 – The second version of our website will be launched.
Summer 2021 – Details about WhirlNet, WhirlCast and Broadcasters for Cure will be posted.
When the station launched up in August, we will continue to remain non-profit and ad-free. The goal of the station will be to preserve the music of Pokémon. We hope you look forward to our soft launch.
Thank you for reading and please stay safe,
Fiddle















