Pre-Proposal - DASH Returns to National Broadcast Radio

FTL_Ian

FTL_Ian

Member
Hello DASH masternodes,

Several years ago, DASH was a major sponsor of Free Talk Live, the top crypto-friendly talk radio show in the United States. We were the first broadcast program to discuss bitcoin back in the day (2011), and many crypto OGs discovered bitcoin and DASH by listening to our libertarian talk show on the radio or online via live streaming and podcast. Since that time, I have been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted by the US federal government goons for selling DASH via our Crypto Vending Machines across New Hampshire. Unfortunately those vending machines (and the hundreds of DASH that was in the machines' hot wallet) are now in the hands of the FBI. I'm currently awaiting sentencing and am facing anywhere from time served to life in prison for eight completely victimless "crimes". However, regardless of what happens to me, Free Talk Live will continue to spread a message of peace, liberty, and cryptocurrency.

Last year, while on home confinement awaiting trial, I was awarded the coveted Freedom Of Speech Award by TALKERS Magazine, the key talk radio industry publication that maintains its "Heavy Hundred" list of the hundred "most important" talk shows in the nation. Free Talk Live is currently at #24 on the Heavy Hundred. We currently have over 170 radio stations across the United States that air our show at various times throughout the week. You can see them on a map here.

We on Free Talk Live have always been of the old-school view on crypto - that it's supposed to be peer-to-peer electronic cash to allow people to escape government money and the banking system middlemen. I've personally helped multiple mom and pop business owners in the Keene, NH area accept DASH at their point-of-sale, though my ability to do that has been crippled the last couple of years since I'm prohibited from using crypto by my bail conditions.

For over a decade we were sponsored by Roger Ver of Bitcoin.com but they decided to end our relationship at the end of 2022. At around the same time we reformatted our show "clock" to completely eliminate two of our four entire commercial breaks per hour, so now we have only two breaks per hour, which means our show has longer segments and 20% more talk time. It's been a really great change as we can now get deeper into discussions on-air.

At this time, we're in the unique position of having absolutely no advertisers. We're relying on our listeners to contribute directly for $5 a month via either our Patreon or Odysee. If we do accept advertisers in the future, I will be extremely choosy about it. I am really enjoying not stopping the on-air discussion for live ads, but I would be willing to do so for the right advertiser.

If we do accept advertisers, it will be no more than one per hour, though I'd prefer to have one sponsor the entire show, just to keep it simple and focused on one great sponsor.

So, that's why I wanted to come back to DASH. We have a history of promoting DASH whether or not DASH was sponsoring us, and our hosts are all fans of actually using crypto. We pay our hosts a gas stipend - currently in Bitcoin Cash from our longtime bitcoin.com sponsorship, but that would become DASH if this proposal is accepted.

I'd like DASH to replace our previous relationship with Bitcoin.com. It was a $5,000 per month sponsorship, but they shared airtime with multiple other sponsors. For DASH, I'd like the deal to be exclusive, meaning we would have no other live sponsors during the broadcast. A live sponsor is an advertiser we talk about live during the show. We do not do recorded ads anymore since we eliminated the two breaks per hour earlier this year. All recorded ad inventory is reserved to our radio network (Genesis Communications Network) and our radio stations that air the show so they can air their local ads. Recorded ads aren't near as effective as live sponsorships, which is what I'd like DASH to be - again.

In addition to at least one discussion per show about the things DASH wants promoted to our national radio audience, we can brand DASH in other ways. The studio can be the DASH.org studio and the phone lines the DASH.org phone lines. Our strength is in broadcast radio, but we do have a live video feed which could include the DASH logo at the top of the screen.

With what is happening in the world financially today, useful cryptos like DASH have never been more important. Let's bring DASH back together with its former broadcast partner, Free Talk Live.

For 100 DASH per month, conversations about DASH would be heard on 170+ radio stations, via our podcast, live streams, and on various video platforms.

Questions and feedback are welcome, thank you for reading.

Ian Freeman
Host, "Free Talk Live"

P.S. Per my bail conditions, I can't touch crypto, but I wanted to post this on behalf of the FTL crew, rather than them posting from a brand new account. If this proposal is welcome by you guys, the actual proposal will be made by another person from FTL.
 
FTL_Ian said:
Hello DASH masternodes,

Several years ago, DASH was a major sponsor of Free Talk Live, the top crypto-friendly talk radio show in the United States. We were the first broadcast program to discuss bitcoin back in the day (2011), and many crypto OGs discovered bitcoin and DASH by listening to our libertarian talk show on the radio or online via live streaming and podcast. Since that time, I have been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted by the US federal government goons for selling DASH via our Crypto Vending Machines across New Hampshire. Unfortunately those vending machines (and the hundreds of DASH that was in the machines' hot wallet) are now in the hands of the FBI. I'm currently awaiting sentencing and am facing anywhere from time served to life in prison for eight completely victimless "crimes". However, regardless of what happens to me, Free Talk Live will continue to spread a message of peace, liberty, and cryptocurrency.

Last year, while on home confinement awaiting trial, I was awarded the coveted Freedom Of Speech Award by TALKERS Magazine, the key talk radio industry publication that maintains its "Heavy Hundred" list of the hundred "most important" talk shows in the nation. Free Talk Live is currently at #24 on the Heavy Hundred. We currently have over 170 radio stations across the United States that air our show at various times throughout the week. You can see them on a map here.

We on Free Talk Live have always been of the old-school view on crypto - that it's supposed to be peer-to-peer electronic cash to allow people to escape government money and the banking system middlemen. I've personally helped multiple mom and pop business owners in the Keene, NH area accept DASH at their point-of-sale, though my ability to do that has been crippled the last couple of years since I'm prohibited from using crypto by my bail conditions.

For over a decade we were sponsored by Roger Ver of Bitcoin.com but they decided to end our relationship at the end of 2022. At around the same time we reformatted our show "clock" to completely eliminate two of our four entire commercial breaks per hour, so now we have only two breaks per hour, which means our show has longer segments and 20% more talk time. It's been a really great change as we can now get deeper into discussions on-air.

At this time, we're in the unique position of having absolutely no advertisers. We're relying on our listeners to contribute directly for $5 a month via either our Patreon or Odysee. If we do accept advertisers in the future, I will be extremely choosy about it. I am really enjoying not stopping the on-air discussion for live ads, but I would be willing to do so for the right advertiser.

If we do accept advertisers, it will be no more than one per hour, though I'd prefer to have one sponsor the entire show, just to keep it simple and focused on one great sponsor.

So, that's why I wanted to come back to DASH. We have a history of promoting DASH whether or not DASH was sponsoring us, and our hosts are all fans of actually using crypto. We pay our hosts a gas stipend - currently in Bitcoin Cash from our longtime bitcoin.com sponsorship, but that would become DASH if this proposal is accepted.

I'd like DASH to replace our previous relationship with Bitcoin.com. It was a $5,000 per month sponsorship, but they shared airtime with multiple other sponsors. For DASH, I'd like the deal to be exclusive, meaning we would have no other live sponsors during the broadcast. A live sponsor is an advertiser we talk about live during the show. We do not do recorded ads anymore since we eliminated the two breaks per hour earlier this year. All recorded ad inventory is reserved to our radio network (Genesis Communications Network) and our radio stations that air the show so they can air their local ads. Recorded ads aren't near as effective as live sponsorships, which is what I'd like DASH to be - again.

In addition to at least one discussion per show about the things DASH wants promoted to our national radio audience, we can brand DASH in other ways. The studio can be the DASH.org studio and the phone lines the DASH.org phone lines. Our strength is in broadcast radio, but we do have a live video feed which could include the DASH logo at the top of the screen.

With what is happening in the world financially today, useful cryptos like DASH have never been more important. Let's bring DASH back together with its former broadcast partner, Free Talk Live.

For 100 DASH per month, conversations about DASH would be heard on 170+ radio stations, via our podcast, live streams, and on various video platforms.

Questions and feedback are welcome, thank you for reading.

Ian Freeman
Host, "Free Talk Live"

P.S. Per my bail conditions, I can't touch crypto, but I wanted to post this on behalf of the FTL crew, rather than them posting from a brand new account. If this proposal is welcome by you guys, the actual proposal will be made by another person from FTL.
Click to expand...


Sounds great, we may already have quick funding for this thru one of our funded organizations like Dash Marketing Hub, also, join our Discord, more active users there, link in left menu under "Chat"
 
I first heard about Bitcoin through these guys on this very show. Then I heard about Dash through @amanda_b_johnson.

I would love to see this 100 DASH/month proposal funded. If we have any soul left in Dash we will seriously consider it.. These guys have already given us 100 DASH worth of value over the years without even asking for it.. The least we can do is fund at least a month or two to see how it's going.

Read @FTL_Ian's post above. I think the value is there.
 
I would support this, I will have a listen to some shows first before making my final decision, but on the face of it, this sounds like a great partnership.
 
I've been following closely the development of the decentralized Thorchain exchange and now Maya and am very happy to see DASH is (FINALLY) on deck to be added. If we can get this rolling, I would think we'd want to push DASH's addition to MAYA out there to our audience big time. Centralized exchanges need to be going extinct.
 
When I first saw the title of this thread I had to reread it again ;)
I am happy to see that you guys still kicking and am sorry for your experience.
I am all for the idea.
Just do not make the proposal this cycle as there is only one week left for voting.
Ian good to see you back.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the acknowledgment, @rion.

Some numbers and facts to consider regarding this pre-proposal:

1) The main distribution claim here is that of radio, a medium whose listenership is notoriously difficult to discern. Even if we could credit some actual listener numbers, there is one glaring fact that would make them irrelevant, anyway: the driving demographic in cryptocurrency is and always has been tech-savvy males in their 20s and 30s.

Tech-savvy males in their 20s and 30s generally don't listen to radio.

Even if one were to make the argument that radio is an opportunity for Dash to tap a different market -- in this case, more old-fashioned people in their 40s+ -- it is beyond certain that the content presented by FTL, as well as their hosts, do not generally appeal to old-fashioned people in their 40s+.

2) Outside the realm of radio: this group's Twitter account is dead. Their Odysee videos don't exceed 100 views. Their TikTok has 153 followers. Their sub-100-views-on-average YouTube channel has been silent for over a year. The only considerable numbers to be found are Soundcloud listens, which are averaging ~1000 listens per episode.

To put that number in perspective, this pre-proposal's request is for $5000 in Dash per month. Given that their ~1000 listens per episode likely come from the same hardcore group of listeners, the network would be paying $5000 per month in exchange for 1000 impressions, or $5 per head.

For comparison, competitive advertising rates generally run around $10 per 1000 targeted impressions, or $0.01 per head. Thus, using verifiable listener numbers from the only channel that our target audience may actually tune in to (in this case, a Soundcloud-hosted podcast), this group is requesting 500x the average advertising cost-per-head. The extreme unattractiveness of this price offering is only compounded by the fact that it is almost certain that FTL's regular 1000 listeners for the most part already know about Dash.

3) Perhaps you're thinking that the listener numbers can't be so easily written off because maybe (maybe) there are lots of un-accounted for listeners in our target demographic who are utilizing the group's livestream function -- a function which doesn't/can't track listenership. Though deciding to support this proposal on a "maybe" would in itself be a reckless endeavor, we don't even need to bother ourselves with making this decision, as you can get a very good idea of the current state, as well as the trajectory of, FTL by simply reading this short blog post made by Mr. Freeman in January of this year, which includes telling lines like "I really don’t care if we never have another advertiser ever again."

---

All told, I view this pre-proposal as a request for charity. I'm not necessarily opposed to Dash donating money to charities, but this is not the way to do it.

A suitable charity to donate to would be a growing, well-respected organization with an outstanding track record, which FTL is not. A suitable charity would propose plans for targeted public relations campaigns wherein Dash and themselves would publicly cross-promote each others' agendas, which FTL is not. And finally, a suitable charity would buy the Dash network the one thing that charities best provide to their donors: the creation of good feelings for observers all around. One need only scroll through a small sampling of FTL's content to see that "good feelings" are not part of their product offering.

Thus, I cannot in any way support this pre-proposal.
 
Pretty brutal, Amanda. Luckily, anyone can listen to our program and see for themselves that we are positive, pro-freedom, and pro-crypto. Our message promotes peace, liberty, and cryptocurrency, so I'm not sure where you are picking up negativity from our content.

You are absolutely right, Free Talk Live is not a very big show online. This proposal made clear this is primarily a broadcast radio sponsorship. The proposal gets DASH on 170+ news/talk radio stations airing our show for less than the cost you'd likely pay for one radio station.

Further, you're comparing apples and oranges if you're comparing running targeted ads to a broadcast medium. We are talking here about doing live promos for DASH. These are endorsement-level ads that are coming from experienced DASH users who have led the way in recruiting businesses to accept DASH in New Hampshire and in my case, has run DASH masternodes.

It's certainly true that news/talk listeners trend into older demographics, but many of those people have money to invest and further, these days most AM talk stations have an FM transmitter as well, so that helps attract younger demographics to the format who would never go to AM.

Finally, yes we currently have no advertisers, which I pointed out in my proposal. And yes, I have said that I wouldn't care if we have another advertiser, as I'd rather not have any and instead be directly supported by our listeners. It's a lot more fun to do a show where we don't have to stop to talk about a sponsor. As a result, we have been having better shows this year since dumping two breaks an hour and having no sponsors. I would be willing to take on a sponsor again, but it has to be the right one. DASH would be the right one, IMO.

I'm not looking for charity. We don't need a sponsor and we'll continue regardless. However, since the entire show is sponsor-free at the moment, it seemed like a good time to come back to DASH and see if you guys want to lock us up as an exclusive. I understand it's a big request. I remember the days when DASH was #5 market cap and running ads on airlines and elsewhere. Maybe it's time to get back out there in big media? FTL is a way to do that and have the ads done by people who are real-life users of DASH. There simply isn't anything like that in old media, so you can't really compare it to anything except other broadcast media, but those shows aren't run by crypto people and certainly not by DASH users.
 
We can also do a smaller hourly sponsorship proposal if the amount is at issue. This proposal is a total show sponsorship, exclusive of any other sponsors. Whereas $2,000 per month in DASH would make DASH the exclusive sponsor of one hour of our show per night. I came in with the bigger number as it didn't seem like there were many proposals. So far Amanda's been the only negative person, though it doesn't seem like a lower price would persuade her. If the lower request would be more pleasing to the people here, I'll put that in instead. Let me know. Feedback always welcome.
 
FTL_Ian said:
We can also do a smaller hourly sponsorship proposal if the amount is at issue. This proposal is a total show sponsorship, exclusive of any other sponsors. Whereas $2,000 per month in DASH would make DASH the exclusive sponsor of one hour of our show per night. I came in with the bigger number as it didn't seem like there were many proposals. So far Amanda's been the only negative person, though it doesn't seem like a lower price would persuade her. If the lower request would be more pleasing to the people here, I'll put that in instead. Let me know. Feedback always welcome.
Click to expand...

You won't be able to please everybody, so you might just have to accept that. One doubt I have heard from others is that the show hangs around you mostly and with your legal issues it puts in doubt the effectiveness of the show should you not be hosting it for a time. Can you speak to the possible outcome of your trial? I can't believe you could be facing jail time for using crypto! and can you speak to the format of the show in your absence and how it might change? Ie if you're out of the picture can the show remain as compelling and interesting without you?
 
Oh, I never expect to please everyone. I am the main host and founder of the show. However, in the same way that I cannot please everyone, I'm certainly not everyone's favorite host. We have many hosts and every listener has their preferences. If I am sent to prison, I expect the show will continue. The show is not about me. It is not called "The Ian Freeman" show because I didn't want it to ever be about one personality. I'm just the one who's been around the longest.

The ridiculous outcome of the trial was guilty on all eight victimless counts. Now I await sentencing, currently set for June 29th. More info on what happened here: https://thecryptosix.com
 
My lawyer was great. We will be appealing all eight counts on the basis of the feds did not prove their case. It seemed like the jury just wanted to send someone up the river for what happened to some poor elderly folks who got scammed on the internet.
 
FTL_Ian said:
We can also do a smaller hourly sponsorship proposal if the amount is at issue. This proposal is a total show sponsorship, exclusive of any other sponsors. Whereas $2,000 per month in DASH would make DASH the exclusive sponsor of one hour of our show per night. I came in with the bigger number as it didn't seem like there were many proposals. So far Amanda's been the only negative person, though it doesn't seem like a lower price would persuade her. If the lower request would be more pleasing to the people here, I'll put that in instead. Let me know. Feedback always welcome.
Click to expand...


I would rather have the better access, all these local radio staions have online feeds too, don't underestimate the demographics of their listeners.I am for the full package as a voter, 100 DashX3 cycles and do qaurterly asks, Dash price could move a lot in 3 months. Syscoin has Hotep Jesus promoting their project as a sponsor, we need to have that kind of listening community support.
 
Last edited:
Thank you for all the feedback. Due to the potential for another advertiser to come on, we've trimmed back the proposal from a full show sponsorship to an hour-exclusive sponsorship, which lowers the cost to $2,000 per month - 32 DASH. If you guys really like what we bring to the table, we can talk about upping it to a full show sponsorship later on. For now, this buys national radio live endorsement ads for about 1 DASH a day - super cheap for radio buys.

Please do tune in and listen any night if you're not already familiar with us - we are live seven nights per week 7-10pm Eastern. If you have something you think our national audience would enjoy hearing about, feel free to call in at 603-283-6160.

Here's the official one-month proposal:
https://www.dashcentral.org/p/Broadcast-Radio-FTL

Thank you in advance for your support. Questions are welcome, of course.
 
I don't have a very strong opinion on this, a part of me couldn't care less which way it goes. But my thought on this is that it's too dated and nostalgic for a return. I wish all those involved at FTL the very best, you do a great job, but imo dash needs - always has needed - things that are very fresh and appealing to a completely different demographic.

I wouldn't be surprised if you win funding because those who are active in voting are, by and large, a small group of OGs not reflecting the wider audience that dash desperately needs. This will continue to be the case for as long as there is downward pressure on the masternode count and not very well distributed. In short, dash governance is significantly broken and functions more like an old boys club.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top