“Dot Radio” or .radio will soon be a new domain name dedicated to, not surprisingly, radio. 

The European Broadcasting Union will manage the dot radio domain. It will be available for all broadcasting organizations and the broader radio community. Dot radio is being reserved for commercial, community and amateur organizations with an interest in radio. This includes radio amateurs and individuals working in the field.

Radio stations will have the exclusive right to register between May 3 to July 5, 2017. All other qualified categories will have sixty days to register starting August 17. General registration will start in November. The land rush is on, so to speak. The EBU web site provides full details of the schedule. These domains will cost $200 to $300 per year. Lower fees for individuals are planned but have not been announced, yet.

Expect your local radio stations to grab theirs if only as a defensive measure. In terms of priorities, while “real” radio stations rank first, internet radio and radio amateurs will have fourth and fifth priority, respectively. The European Broadcasting Union has set a very long runway for assigning these domain names.

Radio stations will soon be able to get .am and .fm domains, as well.

Dot Radio – Are Top Level Domains Still Valuable?

Initially, there was some controversy about whether dot radio would be an open or restricted domain. After three years of back and forth, the matter got resolved last summer.

A whole bunch of new top level domains are coming. Each have a target audience and some restrictions on entry. You can find a list here. However, I am not sure top level domains are really as valuable any more. Not since you can find anything in a search engine. What’s more, Google Search says it will ignore “keyword rich” top level domain names in their ranking.