A typical radio station would never include mainstream R&B tunes from the likes of Usher and OutKast right alongside the sounds of Tanzanian hip hop.

But Chondo, which does just that, is not a typical radio station.  Nor, in fact, can it really be heard on the radio at all.  Yet that isn’t stopping this Seattle upstart from charting ambitious plans for the music business.

Chondo.net, which debuted this week, is a paid Internet subscription music service playing sounds from African and the African Diaspora.  The mission, according to CEO Michael Eastman, is twofold: to link mainstream African-American music with lesser known global artists—and to prove that a niche online music service like his has a viable business model.

“We’ll appeal to world music fans who like a modern sound,” Eastman said.  “There’s not any product like ours.”

Eastman, a former RealNetworks sales executive, is blending his tech and business background with a passion for music.  Eastman estimates he has around 4,000 CDs in his Belltown apartment.

Eastman caught on to world music while living in London and working at an office with an international staff.  He regularly hosted dinner parties and played his mixed CDs for friends.

The idea for Chondo sprouted in the mid-1990s, when Eastman was listening to his friend, an American DJ in Beijing, broadcast over the Internet.  Eastman knew he needed the tech and business know-how to launch his own service.

Over a span of nine months, he wrote more than 20 letters to Seattle-based RealNetworks Inc., which has over 1.3 million Internet media content subscribers.  Eventually, Eastman landed a job as a RealNetworks sales executive, and over the next five years, he learned the Internet subscription business from the market leaders.

Chondo’s playlist, he figures, represents enough of a niche to appeal to a specific audience, yet is large enough to attract a broad subscriber base.  While American hip hop is well distributed, other African music is not widely available.

Eastman has reason to believe he’s jumping on a growing wave.  According to Jupiter Research, digital music subscribers are expected to grow from 1.1 million this year to 8.1 million in 2008.

For $6.95 a month, Chondo subscribers have access to 17 channels.  Some, such as global jazz, divas, and global reggae are based on genre, while others, such as Jammin’, Groovin’, and Chillin’, are distinguished by tempo.

“You don’t want an up tempo song if you’re chilling,” Eastman explained.

The site also displays country and artist profiles when each song is played.  If music labels provide Eastman with song translations, Chondo will start posting lyrics.

Until technology allows Internet radio broadcasts in cars, Chondo will be targeting listeners at work and at home.  Whether people are willing to pay for radio, a traditionally free service, remains debatable.

Michael Goodman, senior analyst with Boston, Mass.-based Yankee Group, said on-demand Internet subscription services, where customers can choose which songs to buy, are seeing more traction than Internet radio.  Jupiter Research predicts digital download purchases will grow from $105 million this year to $677 million in 2008.

“Why pay for radio when it doesn’t have the personalization services of on-demand?” Goodman said.  “It’s kind of no-man’s land.”

Eventually, Chondo will expand into the Internet download and jukebox model, which allows customers to tailor their own play lists.  Until then, Eastman believes people will fork over money for a unique listening experience.

“If you want to hear stuff from the same country all the time, Chondo is not your pick,” Eastman said.  “If you want to hear music from all over, we’re for you.”

Goodman acknowledged that when Internet radio stations can differentiate themselves from free competition and fill a niche, they have a shot at success.

“Having that niche is his principal saving grace,” Goodman said.  “If you’re just doing Top 40, then you’re dead in the water.”

Chondo is initially launching in the United States and Canada, but Eastman plans to expand to other parts of the world once he obtains the appropriate licensing so foreign listeners can use credit cards to subscribe.

In the next five years, Eastman believes, Chondo can attract hundreds of thousands of subscribers, but the company will break even after just a couple thousand subscribers sign on.  Chondo won’t sell advertisements but will have links to Amazon.com and will receive a commission when people purchase CDs.

Chondo is spending around $50,000 in the next year on a mix of regional and national advertising.  Starting in September, Chondo will run online ads on radio and newspaper sites and in African-American weekly newspapers across the country.  Small, directed marketing efforts can be effective, Goodman said.

“The more niche-y you are, the more effective guerilla-type marketing is,” Goodman said.

Aside from Eastman, all of Chondo’s 20 staff members are part time or on contract.  Chondo has a four-person team providing content programming out of Boston, a content consultant with knowledge of South American and Africa working out of the San Francisco Bay area, and out-sourced Web development, public relations, marketing and digital media consulting.  At some point, Eastman will hire more internal staff members, but he wants to be profitable by year-end and won’t increase expenses until then.

When Chondo becomes profitable, Eastman said he will allocate 10 percent of profits to Trickle Up, a nonprofit that provides microloans to Africa, Latin America and Asia.

IN PROFILE:
Eastman has roots in both Deep South and Harvard

When Chondo founder Michael Eastman and his friends go out to dinner near his Belltown home in Seattle, he occasionally slips on a light blue dress purchased in Senegal—just for fun, he says.

Judging from his diverse background, Eastman isn’t afraid to shake things up.  Eastman grew up in Mississippi, where his musician father ran a blues club called Subway Lounge.  The club was featured in a documentary called “Last of the Mississippi Jukes.”

Eastman left the Deep South to attend Harvard, where he was the executive editor of the campus weekly, the Harvard Independent.  He interned at Newsweek and the Washington Post, and then became a full-time Post staff reporter covering Maryland.

His journalism career was short-lived, as Eastman decided to attend Harvard Law School.  After a brief stint at a San Francisco law firm that had tech companies as clients, he decided the tech industry would be a more exciting place to land.

“I wanted to travel the world, and a lawyer is tied to a particular state,” Eastman said. “I never wanted to be in just one state.”

Over the next 20 years, he worked at a number of computer companies overseas and in the United States, most recently RealNetworks.

Eastman’s home is filled with the 4,000 CDs he’s collected and musical instruments he’s brought back from travels across the world.  In the last five years, he has traveled to Brazil, Germany, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Chile, South Africa and Senegal.