Radio and Its Future

Radio and its future

During the increase in popularity of radio, Arthur Edwin Kennelly said (1926) "through radio I look forward to a United States of the World. Radio is standardizing the peoples of the Earth, English will become the universal language because it is predominantly the language of the ether. The most important aspect of radio is its sociological influence." Kennelly was foreseeing the potential power and impact that radio would soon come to have. By the late twenties, we would see radio become quite the sensation in the household, and this sensation would continue to prosper even through the Great Depression with aid of soap operas and popular programs such as the Lone Ranger. Radio would see a decrease in popularity during the rise of the television. Eventually, radio would find itself a niche in the media market, allowing it to continue to prosper. This would be due to the help of Frequency Modulation radio broadcasting and localization. Radio stations were now able to offer more local content than radio, touching on local news, weather, and advertisements for local businesses all at a higher sound quality. That joined with a symbiotic relationship with the recording industry and the start of formatted radio programs, the two industries were set to last for almost another fifty years (Adams, n.d.).

Once again, radio is currently at a crucial stance. FM radio was once the means in which someone could find out about new music artists, hear their favorite top songs, and catch up on local/world news. However, with the surge of the Internet at the turn of the century, the role of the radio starts to diminish. The Internet can now be used for gathering local news or weather in a fast and efficient manner. It can also be used as a way for music fans to find new artists similar to ones that they currently like, and (although not legal) ease in the process of downloading complete albums in high-quality formats for free. CD and MP3 players are now very popular for the person "on-the-go," and as a result, it's very easy to find people that remark: "I don't listen to radio." The reason for this is that radio has lost its niche. No longer is radio as convenient of a means to get news and experience new or popular music. Radio is forced, once again, to innovate itself in order to keep from being eliminating by the more popular types of media. Two recent innovations in radio could possibly give radio a new niche and be its own savior. These are genre-specific radio, and high audio-quality broadcasting.

Part of the blame for the gradual falling of the radio industry is attributed to homogenization. "While Costello and the punks and New Wavers did their best to push back against increasing homogenization, the promise of radio-long the most democratic of the traditional mass media-continued to be squandered. Big media corporations and their allies in Congress and on the Federal Communications Commission quietly rewrote the rules during the 1980s and '90s to clear away barriers to consolidation, thereby ushering in an era in which the news was dumbed down, dissent was stifled and the music all started to sound the same" (Radio Waves, 2005, p. 3). A reaction to predictable and bland radio programming is specialized stations that are genre or topic specific. Given the limited band of frequencies in FM for music stations, it would be tough to have specific radio stations for the hundreds of genres that music can be categorized into. One possibility is to have stations play a certain genre for a few hours a week. Some stations such as college radio stations will do this. Although this would allow for more specific content, the listener loyalty would not be as high. This would be because the targeting user would only tune into the station for those few hours that their desired music is on. Internet radio can solve this problem.

With a virtually unlimited number of Internet radio streams, radio stations can hone in and be extremely genre-specific. This means that the listener gets to listen to the music they want all day long, and hear new artists that sound like their current favorites. Since radio is primarily a passive form of media, internet radio fits in nicely. Listeners can tune in to their station while at work, where most people have an Internet connection. Their favorite music can be playing all long day while they work, and resumed when they get to their home. Soon, we may even see a possibility for internet radio in the automobile. As projects to install wireless access points in metropolis areas increase, it may not be long before an Internet connection is possible from the road.

A possible detriment to internet broadcasting, however, is cost. WOXY-FM had to cease broadcasting due to internet broadcasts being higher than that of traditional broadcasting. Another setback on Internet Radio is the recording industry pushing for government regulation for royalties. Due to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a station is required to pay about 10% in royalties to the artists and industry, or pay a by-song royalty fee which is often higher (Harwoood, 2004).

The second innovation in the radio industry which can help keep radio relevant is the concept of high audio-quality broadcasting. This comes in mostly two forms at the current time: satellite radio and HD radio. Both of these techniques allow for near CD-quality audio broadcasting. The former allows for a station to be heard regardless of location, and the latter allows for digital broadcasting out of the existing local AM/FM towers. This results in satellite radio primarily as a national phenomenon and HD-radio as a local one. Satellite radio is advantageous for people traveling often, since it allows them to get their favorite radio station anywhere in the country. However, it does not have the current capability to carry local programming. The two current satellite radio providers are XM and Sirius and currently both offer their service at a monthly subscription fees (Pierce, 2002).

In contrast, HD radio offers local programming, tailoring to those that want local