Audio Broadcast

I am looking into the possibility of adding audio content to a website - 
live audio at scheduled times, pre-recorded audio at scheduled times or 
on-demand play of archived content. The length would be 30 to 60 minutes.

Does anyone have knowledge of what the viable options are at this time and 
any particular new, breakthrough, low-cost approaches to doing this?

If anyone has any particular technologies or service providers (hosts) to 
suggest I would appreciate it.

Of course Real Audio and Windows Media come to mind. (Windows Media always 
seemed to perform better with the internet connections that I had.) Does 
anyone know the pros and cons of these two? Hardware/software/cost/quality, 
etc?

Then there is MP3 technology. That always seemed to work best for me 
because it would download the whole file and play without interruption. It 
would also take less server space to archive.

I know there are also different forms of internet conferencing that are 
available and that would be one form of live audio. Does anyone have any 
leads or input on what might work from this approach?

It just occurred to me that making the content available on a file-sharing 
network like gnutella would be one way for on demand acquisition and 
listening. Does anyone have any comments on this idea? The content will be 
free so I don't need a payment mechanism. Is there a way to make files at 
my web host accessible to one of these networks?

As you can see I am just brainstorming my way through this subject. It just 
occurred to me that anonymous FTP download from my website might be the 
cheapest solution.  All things considered, what would be better, to archive 
as .wav or MP3 and how would I go about recording or converting the content 
to that format? Or is there a better format?

I know there is also the idea of broadcasting a message over internet radio 
as a way of producing a scheduled broadcast. Does anyone know of a place 
where time can be purchased or where a person should start looking?

I suspect there are new, emerging, creative, competitive, economical 
solutions to broadcast an audio message and I am trying to find something 
that would work for me.

Thanks for any good ideas or input,

Matt

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