User:Tc103/sandbox

TriviaCompanion
TriviaCompanion is an online Internet Radio station broadcasting 32k and 64k mp3 streams, self-described as "Jet-Set and Jazzy" with "corny" work safe jokes. It aims to address the atomic age lounge culture of the 60's with a more modern (but work-safe) feel.

Programming
The programming can be described as a rather eclectic collection of Space Age Bachelor Pad music, with Spy jazz thrown in and in some cases modern jazz and what some may refer to as elevator music. Typical artists might include Frank Sinatra, Henry Mancini and Julie London.

Modern artists which fit the genre are welcome to add their music and are encouraged to phone in a brief introduction to be used prior to their music, this is used to give listeners a more personalized experience and connect the artist to the music being played.

Periodic, self-described "lame work safe jokes", and bits of trivia are added. Designed to break up the long blocks of music and to give musians something to talk about when they phone in their introductions, trivia often takes the form of unusual news stories or urban legends asked in a question format. Other forms of trivia might involve unusual patents and in some cases, scientific topics.

A common theme is for musicans to make jokes about the lame jokes when they phone in their introductions.

Work Safe
A primary goal of the stream is to remain work-safe, problems arise when working in team environments and co-workers are alienated by audio programming.

Additionally, some work environments, such as hotel lobbies or reception areas, might involve customer interaction. Naturally, offending customers would be undesirable for employers and not permitted.

For this reason, profanity is not used, political topics are generally avoided, except as it applies to trivia questions. While most of the music has no lyrics, the tracks that do contain lyrics are generally considered safe for work.

2006 The name TriviaCompanion
TriviaCompanion was originally designed as a podcast, with a format of jazz and trivia questions. The original plan had been to produce a show asking arbitrary trivia questions (usually related to a particular topic) followed by music of the stations genre, followed by the answer and then another question.

The podcast format was immediately abandoned (but not before the name had been established) when it was determined that licensing restrictions would not enable the podcast to be distributed legally.

2006 Podcast
Legal concerns made it impractical to release triviacompanion in podcast form, however, this phase determined the seemingly unfit name.

2008 Live365
Sometime around 2008, triviacompanion began broadcasting on the live365 network. This phase lasted about a year and provided enough feedback from listeners to make decisions about the future direction.

It was during this phase that custom software had been written to enable triviacompanion to have features unique to its format, such as the ability to air podcasts or in some cases, audio feeds from other news sources. This software is proprietary, and highly custom, making it impractical for distribution.

The software serves as a shoutcast source client and permits a kind of hybrid between "nearly live" programming and automated programming in such a way the announcer can come in at any time with news, trivia or call in messages.

2009 SWcast
After the first year of operating under Live365, triviacompanion decided to expand into areas where live365 could not cover (such as the ability to be played on devices live365 did not support) a move toward the swcast network was made for licensing.

At this point, the stream was moved outside of live365, to servers running the FreeBSD operating system.

2011 Business Problems
The spring of 2011 saw the end of the SWCast network, due to licensing issues with US authorities.

At this point, triviacompanion was forced off-air while new owners were sought.

2012 Change in Ownership
In the spring of 2012, nearly a year later, ownership of triviacompanion was transferred to Canada, where it could be licensed under SOCAN.

The stream was substantially upgraded at this point, offering multiple bandwidth options and both shoutcast and icecast streaming servers. A new domain name, triviacompanion.ca was added, to make clear the station is operating in Canada. (it is impossible for a US citizen to obtain a .ca domain name)

The format hasn't changed much since 2008, and continues to operate under the name triviacompanion.com