Sidney radio station WCDO, which broadcasts on 101 FM and 1490 AM, rang in the New Year with a new online live audio stream. As of January 1, the station -- one of the few that broadcasts original local news and sports in the region -- can be heard live online at WCDOLive.com.
The station began livestreaming local high school sports games a few months ago, said WCDO news director Rob Ray, who called the experiment a "great success."
WCDO's livestream isn't perfect: It doesn't include the station's local sportscasts, which are broadcast on a separate channel, and the station is offline for certain hours of the day due to "contractual constraints." Also, it's Flash-based, meaning that users of the iPad and iPhone, which don't support Flash natively, will have to download an extra app to hear the stream from their smartphones.
Still, it's a big step forward for the station, and part of a hopeful trend in local media. WCDO joins a growing contingent of locally-based Catskills-area radio stations that broadcast live over the Internet: WRIP 97.9 in Windham, WJFF 90.5 in Jeffersonville, WGXC 90.7 in Catskill, WIOX 91.3 in Roxbury, Thunder 102 in Liberty, and WDST 100.1 in Woodstock, to name a few.
