In the Face of Podcasts "Radio Continues to be a Useful, Profitable Technology"

 

 

 

 

So writes Seth Stevenson in his Slate article "Don't Count AM/FM Radio Out Just Yet." Slate this week is posting articles surrounding the podcast's ten-year anniversary. 

Here we read why the Internet will someday conquer the radio:

The reality is that the Internet will win out, sooner or later. There’s no stopping it. Though the audience for audio has been growing overall, nearly all that growth is happening online. For good reason: Online you can fire up your favorite podcasts whenever you please—instead of tuning in and hoping against hope that something you’ll like is on. There’s much wider variety to be found on the Web, with thousands of niche programming choices—instead of a mere 30 stations on your FM dial. From the point of view of a person recording a podcast in her garage, it’s a breeze for her to distribute audio content over the Internet, with little in the way of startup costs. Like, for instance, she needn’t erect an enormous radio tower.

But there are also reasons to believe radio will survive for years to come:

Of course, that garage podcaster will suddenly be smacked with huge data costs if her show becomes a hit. For this and other reasons, radio engineer and activist Pete Tridish predicts that terrestrial radio will always have a useful role to play. Tridish got involved with small-scale radio operations out of frustration with the consolidation that happened after that 1996 telecommunications deregulation. He helps engineer over-the-air operations for rural communities, groups of farmworkers, and such, sometimes placing small broadcast towers on the tops of buildings. When I spoke to him, he was about to help establish a station for a Navajo college in Arizona. “Just because we have word processing now doesn’t mean there’s no place for the pencil,” he says, “and just because we have the Internet doesn’t mean there’s no place for radio.”

He suggests a few reasons why terrestrial radio will stick around for a long time:

• Most of us don’t feel the cost of the data we’re using when we stream online content. But this could be changing. “Half the public still has no idea what data metering is,” says Smulyan, “but we find it changes consumption completely when people see what they’re paying for the data they use.”
• Due to some complex legislation, it can be less onerous to pay artist royalties when you play music over the airwaves than when you send it over the Internet. For this reason, last year Pandora bought an FM station in South Dakota, in an effort to qualify as a terrestrial broadcaster.
• When the revolution comes, radio will be vital for the propagation of seditious content. It leaves no digital footprints. And the NSA is unlikely to hack into your transistor boom box and track what you listen to.
• When the zombie apocalypse arrives, radio will save your hide. Anyone with a generator and an antenna can broadcast radio, and everyone listening hears the same key information in real time.

 

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Comments

[Gary]

I listen to AM radio mainly for live news and talk. In fact, late this afternoon I heard on KFI a National Weather Service flash flood warning for Torrance, where Jeff lives. I turned on KCBS TV to see several streets in Torrance under water, with many cars stranded.

I hope you weren't out driving around in this, Jeff.

[herculodge]

I saw some deep water in the far right driving lanes, but I didn't get stranded.

[Drive-In-Freak]

I have nothing to back this up, but there's rumors going around the broadcast industry that Clear Channel is going to be getting out of the radio business and go strictly iHeartRadio. I normally don't pay attention to rumors, but when it comes to radio they're true quite often.
Notice how hard they've been pushing it on there stations lately?

Ok, so let's address a couple of issues. The cost of data? Very true, but how much does it cost an FM station to pump out 100,000W of power? Now add on ASCAP and BMI. That's some serious money. A lot more than data, for sure. Also you can add to the cost of keeping the transmitter and everything else going on top of data too as must station now stream.

FCC content regulations. This is 2014, yet people still can't speak with the language we actually use over the airwaves. In fact it's more restrictive now than it was 20 years ago. There's a reason the top TV shows are from cable channels now instead of the old broadcast networks. Radio is no different.
Content: Music? There is no need for music radio at this point at all. What passes for airplay now is far behind the curve, so it's not like you're going to be exposed to anything new. Talk? Mostly the same thing going out over hundreds (if not thousands in some cases) of stations. Local content is few and far between, so why bother with transmitting nationwide feeds over the air? It's not like we are still restricted to just whatever stations are in our aria anymore.

Radio may very well survive, but if they don't make some serious adjustments is going to become pure novelty.
When TV started coming in radio adapted and transformed into something new to stay relevant. The days of The Lone Ranger over the radio were gone. Now that there's something else to contend with it seems as if they think the same old same old will see them through for some reason.