Short Summary

Hi! My name is David Daskal, and I’m the station owner of No Joke Radio at radionojoke.com (because nojokeradio.com was already taken). Thank you for visiting us here!

We launched on February 1st, 2023 as an online radio station to a limited amount of exclusive subscribers. Playing music 24/7 from 1954-Present Day, with no commercials and no talk.

After building a 5000+ song catalog, I’m wanting to make No Joke Radio publicly accessible in 2024. Our largest expense is paying five performance royalty organizations–ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, GMR, and SoundExchange–who in turn distribute these royalties to the songwriters and performing artists of the songs heard on No Joke Radio.

In making this transition, we’ll be able to reach up to 20,000 listeners globally at one time. Every time a song is heard by one person, it creates a performance royalty. In order to sustain ourselves at this magnitude, your donation for as little as $1* will help support us through 2024. (Throughout the process, we realized we could not set a donation parameter at $1.23 (as the video states), so we’re amending the smallest donation to $1.)

What We Need & What You Get

We are seeking $120,000 for the year to cover our large royalty performance expenses and to renew five multiple blanket licenses (a $5,000-$6,000 annual expense) from the performance royalty organizations mentioned above. It sounds like an incredibly tall order, but if 120,000 music-loving people donated as little as $1 each, we can absolutely hit that goal.

Whether you like Taylor Swift or Drake; Barry Manilow or Rancid, we play the gamut. You can search through our constantly updated catalog at radionojoke.com/request to see who and what we currently play as well as what our media player looks like. Our player is currently blocked behind a paywall available only to our exclusive subscribers for the remainder of the year, but on the request page, you can see what the song title, artist, and accompanying artwork look like, albeit with a different color scheme. You can also check out our current station schedule at radionojoke.com/programming and the most 20 recently played songs (auto-updates) by scrolling down the page.

With your donation of $1, you’ll have the option of receiving an audio shoutout on No Joke Radio in the year of 2024.

With your donation of $5.00 up to $164, you’ll have the options of receiving both an audio shoutout on No Joke Radio as well as a (non-tagged) shoutout in our facebook marketing campaigns.

Our most exciting perk is at the $165 donation level. If you make a donation at this level, you will get to choose from any day of the year in 2024 to be a Special Guest DJ for an hour! You can pick any midday (11am PST/1pm CST/2pm EST) or early evening (3pm PST/5pm CST/6pm EST) slot to have the music you program featured for up to 20,000 people to hear! Since there is no talk on No Joke Radio, you don’t have to worry about speaking at all. You’ll be able to simply build an hour playlist (an average of 18 tracks) with well over 5000 songs in our catalog to choose from. So, if you want to throw on a Snoop Dogg or Insane Clown Posse song after Taylor Swift or Beyoncé, followed by an obscure 1970s bubblegum one-hit wonder or, Frank Sinatra, the choice is yours. You call the shots!

There are no limitations* on how many slots you can program if you donate beyond $165, so long as they are in increments of $165. For instance, if you generously donate an even $1,000, you will receive 6 slots to choose from as a Special Guest DJ in 2024. Want to program twice a month for a full year? Then, your generous donation of $3,960 will absolutely cover it. (*A maximum of 730 slots will be available.)

If you wish to generously donate from a dollar amount that isn’t shown or beyond $165, simply pick any donation field you want and change the increment number.

Even if we do not reach our goal, the wonderful aspect of Indiegogo is that we were able to choose a flexible funding option, so your donation will be attributed to these expenses, and you will receive your perk(s) no matter what. Indiegogo will obtain a small percentage of total donations whether No Joke Radio meets our goal or not, including collecting transaction fees per donation.

The Impact

No Joke Radio exists to entertain and educate through popular music. The feelings we’ve been joyously eliciting this past year range from, “Wow! I haven’t heard this song in 20 years” to, “What SiriusXM station are we listening to?” to, “Is this a new song? I like it! Who is singing it?” We aim to play something familiar, something you haven’t heard in a long time, and something new.

Your donation to help sustain No Joke Radio in 2024 will allow us to continue to bring our unique programming to anyone who has an internet connection all over the world!

Already having been successful in our first year of operation, the first year is always the make or break for an online radio station. And well over 90% of those stations do not make it to year two. We are fortunate and grateful to be operating without the assistance of commercials and visual ads as we move into 2024, giving our listeners guaranteed nonstop music with no song repetition. We want to continue with this commercial-free format.

On a personal note, radio broadcasting is my absolute passion and my first love since I was at least 4 years of age (no joke!) growing up in Maryland Heights, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. I’m thrilled to be coming back full circle in my life after having explored previous passions in the entertainment and transportation industries, respectively.

With deep gratitude and appreciation, thank you for your donation!

Risks & Challenges

Realistically, the challenge of raising $120,000 in 46 days (and the coal ran out–Phish reference) sounds Mt. Everest high, but the great news is that we are at no loss with whatever we are able to raise over the course of our campaign. We’re a small business operating out of Northern California broadcasting to the world, and we believe in what we’re doing. The proof has been in the dedicated listenership and support we’ve had thus far, and we thank you for believing in us, too. You are the reason why we are doing what we’re doing.

Other Ways You Can Help

I know that in our current climate, donating even $1 is $1 too much, and I totally understand. If you’re still as pumped and enthusiastic as we are about what we’re doing, please utilize the Indiegogo share tools to spread the word on your social media platforms! Everything helps!

Thank you so much!

Music and Gratitude,
David Daskal
Station Owner
No Joke Radio
radionojoke.com/programming