How should I go about starting my talk-radio career?

[T-Dawg]

I found an interesting site which could easily give me access to all the tools I need, but I'm not so sure about their terms of service:
BlogTalkRadio - User Agreement

In particular, I'm worried about these:

With respect to your Broadcast Blog Programs, you grant BlogTalkRadio a royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual right and license throughout the world to transmit, perform publicly, display publicly, perform digitally, distribute and syndicate your Broadcast Blog Programs in whole or in part, for any and all purposes, to the extent permitted by law, and the right to grant to third parties the right to do any or all of the foregoing.

(Emphasis mine)
Does this mean that they can intentionally misquote me and get away with it???

You are of the age of majority and have the full and complete right to agree to the terms contained in this Agreement;

Does this mean I have to be over 18? If so, that's idiotic, most of the people who are going to want to use a system such as this will be in the 15-20 range (older people can just buy time on real radio stations...).

Neither your Broadcast Blog Programs nor any parts thereof defame any third parties, constitute impermissible hate speech or otherwise violate any rights of free speech of any third parties;

Defame third parties? Does this mean I can't rant about insurance lobbyists or tell people about how conservative Obama is?

I dunno, the site seems like it could be useful, but when I give it a closer look, I find opportunities for corruption on their part...


My only other idea was to make youtube videos where I give political commentary and opinutainment and eventually become popular enough for people to want to participate in the show.

 

[rachadelle]

If I were you use youtube or some other outlet. Blogtalkradio has too many rules about what you can say or do on there. There is also another platform called Blogtv where you can broadcast. It is a video webcast just like youtube but you can do live shows with this unlike youtube. I hope this helps.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Does this mean that they can intentionally misquote me and get away with it???

I'm not sure how you get that out of it.

I think mainly, they're trying to say that if you use their service, they can use the stuff you upload how they want without having to pay you. I doubt they'd want to make you look bad on purpose.

Does this mean I have to be over 18?

In the US, yes. They word it that way because the age of majority is different in some countries.

If so, that's idiotic, most of the people who are going to want to use a system such as this will be in the 15-20 range (older people can just buy time on real radio stations...).

Maybe at 2 in the morning or something like that, and even then it'd be expensive. Most people don't have that kind of money to blow, even if they're older and established.

Defame third parties? Does this mean I can't rant about insurance lobbyists or tell people about how conservative Obama is?

Here's a quick explanation of defamation: Defamation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Generally, defamation is when a person makes false or baseless statements about somebody that harm his reputation or cause damages. If you stick to only saying things that are true and can be backed up, then you're not committing defamation.

Basically, the site wants to make sure that what you do with its service won't get it sued.

My only other idea was to make youtube videos where I give political commentary and opinutainment and eventually become popular enough for people to want to participate in the show.

What about a regular podcast?

I don't know a whole lot about BlogTalkRadio, but it seems to me that its strength is in letting users do live call-in shows. If it's just going to be you with maybe some pre-recorded material or a guest, why not do it as a standard podcast? You could distribute it through iTunes or one of the other podcasting clients, or just post the podcast files on your own web site for download.

 

[Valjean]

Are you talking about audio internet or actual, over-the-air talk radio, T-Dawg?