ABOUT THE PROJECT
Green Valley Radio is an audio entertainment project exploring the history of events, music, culture, and conflict in the style of vintage radio broadcasts.
Below you will some of the most common questions about the project, with answers from its creator and producer Nick Seider. Please visit our Patreon Page if you are interested supporting Green Valley Radio!
What is Green Valley Radio?
Green Valley Radio is an audio entertainment project exploring the history of events, music, culture, and conflict in the style of vintage radio broadcasts.
Our primary broadcasts are by the same name - Green Valley Radio - which take listeners to the fictional town of Green Valley U.S.A.
Since starting this project, we have also started other broadcasts, including:
The Civilian Radio Network:
A fictional network of semi-clandestine radio operations around the world.
The Adventures of Val & Sal:
Our first radio drama, following two our our most eccentric characters as they frequently find themselves on the fringes of major World War II events.
Manzanar Free Radio:
A fictional radio program set in Manzanar Relocation Center and exploring real news from its residents. This is our first taste of exploring some of the regional conflict associated with World War II
High Fashion Highway:
A new series that intends to have annual episodes, we follow our fashion correspondent Mary Hampton as she finds herself on the fringes of conflicts and struggles facing different groups of Americans in the 1940s.
The Squeaky Floorboard:
Our first suspense / thriller series, following host Vincent Wolf as he tells eery stories of his boarding house’s past tenants.
Where is Green Valley U.S.A.?
As is with all fiction, the idea is there is an element of subjective enjoyment. Much like the city in Fahrenheit 451, the world of Lemony Snick’s Series of Unfortunate Events, and Springfield in the Simpsons, Green Valley is largely wherever you imagine it being. It could be anywhere.
In truth, I have my own subjective experience with the project and can place Green Valley in a few different places in my mind.
If you are a stickler like I am, and want to put some geography on it, Green Valley is set somewhere West of the Mississippi, East of the Cascades and Sierras, and north of the Mojave and Sonoran desert regions. But the important thing is that Green Valley serves its purpose as a lens to the past. Yes, its residents are fictional, but much of the news and segments you hear come from real small-town newspapers.
And the beauty of a fictional place is that it can be subjectively enjoyed by anyone. This fictional town is truly meant for anyone and everyone.
Where did the idea for Green Valley Radio come from?
Nick Seider, the creator of the project, and the guy typing answers to these questions, has had a project like this in mind since he (I) was a kid. Okay lets switch off third person -
I mostly grew up in Hemet, California, a town off the beaten path on the fringes of Eastern California and the Mojave Desert. When I was around ten years old (around 2003 or 2004) I was attempting to build a model train layout in the garage. I found the only jazz radio station available, and would listen to it as my background entertainment. There was one particular day that sort of set the feeling of sentimental or nostalgic joy I eventually wanted to recreate with this project.
As a teenager, I often visited Disneyland. The Jungle Cruise is one of my favorite attractions in the park, largely because it surrounds you in an environment (if only for a moment) where you feel whisked away to a different world. I love the queue music they play when waiting to board the boats, which is an emulated broadcast set loosely in the 1930s (although many of the songs are in fact, from the 1940s), but as a teenager I often thought about a similar concept - an emulated broadcast - grounded in history.
But I set these ideas aside for college where I obtained a bachelor’s degree in history, until life put a lot of time into my lap in 2020. The Pandemic coincided with me transplanting to a new home out of state. Around late summer, early fall, I began researching how I could emulate vintage radio projects. I experimented with curated playlists on Spotify and live streaming content on Twitch, but eventually settled on a straight forward Podcast format with a YouTube channel. At first the project consisted of myself, and two friends I had in mind to voice characters. Garrett Fritz, a good friend and buddy from college who favored WWII history, took on the role of War Correspondent Walter Klondike. Hannah Marks, a dear friend with an education in musical theater, took on the role of Fashion Correspondent Hannah Bourbon. For domestic news, and to put a piece of myself in the project, I created the character Jack Avalon, better known as “Catalina Jack”.
Since 2020 the production team has grown considerably, and we are quite an inter-state bunch. I live in Washington, some cast live in the North East, others in the Midwest, and a few in California. Together, and through the power of the internet, we can collectively bring this production to life!
How large is your team?
As of December 2023, the project has a team of about twenty talented individuals all providing their time and effort to bring these broadcasts and stories to life. Take a look at the Our Team page on our website to learn more about each of us!
Where does your patronage go?
We recieve our funds from Patrons via Patreon, with occassional sales on project Merhandise and sponsored episodes. Since its start, and as of the outset of 2024, this project is not seeking profit, but rather the ability to produce our content and make it freely available.
These are our 5 Funding Priorities for the project:
Maintaining The Project
First and foremost, your patronage goes to maintaining the project - that is to say the main components that allow it to function. This includes a music license, website subscription fees, internet bandwidth that allows for live streaming, and subscription fees to the server that we run our 24/7 broadcasts on.
Seasonal Postcards & Thanksgiving Gifts
The second priority of funds is to ensure each of our patrons of the appropriate tiers receive their promised gifts. Seasonal Postcards and Thanksgiving Gifts! Additionally, we ensure that the production team also receives these seasonal postcards and Thanksgiving Gifts.
Compensating Our Team
As of December 2023, the GVR team has received no compensation for their time and talent. While it is a joy to have a team so dedicated to the project, the ultimate goal is to eventually be able to compensate our team for that time and talent. The third priority of funds would be saving for the day we can begin paying the team.
Building Our Merchandise
Excess funds outside the first 3 tiers will be dedicated towards researching, developing, and implementing initial stock for Green Valley Radio merchandise. Those in the Research & Development tier get early access to these merch items AT COST. And ALL tier levels get some form of discount through Merchandise hosted right here on Patreon.
Marketing
Radio may have been the way of the world 80 years ago, but today if you want to get your story heard you need to put it in front of the right people - and that takes marketing. This is the least important of the funding priorities since our purpose is the development of creative and entertaining content, not throwing money at the wall to find new listeners. Rest assured, our marketing budget will be the smallest portion of this project.
Does Green Valley Radio have an end date planned?
Technically yes, technically no. This project started as an exploration of World War II. When we reach the end of 1945 (2025) we will be tying up many of the threads we’ve been spinning since 2021. In a way, the first “series” will have ended.
But the project at its core is an exploration of history, music, and culture. If there is enough momentum behind us, we will continue into the future. We may change the format to speed time up a little, but if we have the energy behind us to make it happen we will continue this project.
I have a loose ending in my head, when we reach the end of the cold war and begin a period of transition to the 21st century. But this objective is far beyond the horizon.
What if I don’t want to be credited in the project but want to fund the higher tiers?
No problem! Just email greenvalleyradio.mail@gmail.com and let us know you’d like to opt out! You can also request a different name be credited, or a shortened name. An example would be “Sally Sullivan” shortened to “Sally S.”
What if I don’t want to share my address with you?
You are welcome to opt out of receiving physical gifts in the mail from the project. Please email greenvalleyradio.mail@gmail.com and let us know so we can update our Patron Files.
How do you safely use copyright music?
Our 24/7 internet radio broadcasts on the Live Web Player and the Green Valley Radio App we pay for an annual license that covers the songs played.
Our other distrubition centers, namely YouTube, Spotify Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts pay for licensing to cover liability on our part and theirs - at the cost of us being able to monetize this project on those platforms. Any interupted advertising seen or heard on those platforms does not correlate to any financial gain on our part, and any ad revenue made goes to the licensees of the music used. This is one reason we produce this project on voluntary patronage from listeners like you, because the nature of this project bars us from monetizing from ads like most projects.
If we ever received a warning or cease and desist with specifics on any violations or accidental copyright infringement we would comply. Three years into the project, this has not been an issue and we continue to be able to distribute our content unhindered.
There are times where certain songs are fully blocked and we must remove them. More interestingly, due to the times we live in right now, many songs are banned from Russia. But this still is no hinderance to publishing our content on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple.
Additionally, we claim full rights for all music used in our original broadcasts - that is to say our radio dramas like Val & Sal or Squeaky Floorboard.