Traditional Radio Endangered By New Tech

Rob wrote to mention a Reuters article discussing the danger to traditional radio posed by new new technologies. From the article: "The radio industry could find itself at the kids' table in the media banquet hall, as new technology threatens the business, advertising executives said this week at the Reuters Media and Advertising Summit. Satellite radio, digital music players and the Internet are slowly encroaching on traditional radio's stronghold on local entertainment and advertising. Plus, radio ads themselves are less memorable and creative, these executives said."

Re:In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

Radio isn't obsolete. It simply has been perverted over the last ten years by the two companies who bought every station in the US.

Last.fm

[captainclever]

Traditional radio is becoming more homogenized, and clearchannel rules the roost.
Personalised radio programmes based on induvidual taste are the way forward!
Compulsory Last.fm [www.last.fm] reference :)

Re:XM/Sirius question

[confusedwiseman]

Their ability to work indoors is directly praportional to your ability to install the external antenna. (sad but true)

Our local NPR has a great music station.

[MondoMor]

Minnesota Public Radio launched The Current [publicradio.org] about a year ago and it's fantastic. It's like having a good-quality college station, but with better production values.

I switch between The Current and MPR's "news and information" station. It's rare I don't find something worth listening to on either.

I can't listen to commercial radio any more.

Re:Satellite Radio Sucks

[aztec rain god]

Not only that, but I heard my friend's xm radio, and they started putting ads on some of the stations (the comedy station was the only one I listened to). I dislike commercial radio as much as the next guy, but at least I don't have to pay for the privilege to listen to ads. sheesh.

Re:XM Radio, I love it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent down. Plagiarist.

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=137418 &cid=11488437 [slashdot.org]

It isn't new tech that's killing radio.

[iSeal]

Radio died long before the advancement of XM and Sirius.

Taken from The Myth of Media Piracy: [jmcardle.com]
It died when in 1996, the US Federal Communication Commission changed the laws on radio station ownership, removing the limits on how many stations a single company could own. As a consequence, Clear Channel was able to take over station after station. Within a matter of years, it owned 1,200 stations across the United-States; including 247 of the 250 largest radio markets.[1] This severely limited the amount and variety of new music being played on the airwaves. As Touré, a contributing editor to the Rolling Stones put it, "So now if you can't get through Clear Channel, or you can't get through MTV, how does anybody know your record is out?"[2] The fact is, no one can. Furthermore, polls indicated that youths were being turned off by the lack of fresh music on the air.[3]

Radio seemingly play the same 10 songs over and over. It doesn't help that labels like Sony BMG illegally bribed stations to play the tunes they wanted.[4]

These new technologies represent what radio should be: music. Not the worst crap of the 80s/90s repeated every hour. Unfortunately, these technologies either cost money (Sirius), or have to pay such insane royalty fees that they have no choice but to fall in the realm of illegality (Internet Radio). Did you know that an Internet Radio station has to pay $25,000 in royalties every day if it has 10,000 listeners? [5] Traditional radio on the other hand don't have to pay any royalties.

Sources:
1. http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2001/04/30/clear_ channel/ [salon.com]
2. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/musi c/interviews/toure.html [pbs.org]
3. http://www.radiodiversity.com/faceofradio.html [radiodiversity.com]
4. http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050725/music_probe.html?.v =11 [yahoo.com]
5. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2002- 07-21-radio_x.htm [usatoday.com]

Re:XM/Sirius question

[blackmonday]

I get Sirius while at work at my desk. I don't have the antenna up high or anything, its in the standard position on the boombox. FWIW I work in a highrise on the 23rd floor, with a Window view.

By the way, Sirius lets you stream all the music stations to your computer (windows media player required, works on Mac or Windows). So you can subscribe and listen to music without the radio, pretty much whenever you're online.

Re:Public Radio

[Realistic_Dragon]

You get the BBC World Service in the US as well... around 1am in the morning when they are running syndicated stations. It's great for night driving to keep you awake :)

I actually know some construction workers in MA who tape it overnight and then listen to it at work instead of the normal programming.

Re:XM Radio, I love it.

[CastrTroy]

There's a lot more cost in buying an iPod than in using a satellite radio server. If you buy 1 cd a month, then that covers the cost of the subscription. If you have an ipod, you have to buy music, either on CD or iTunes, or download it for free on the internet. With satellite radio, you pay $15? I think a great think would be an Ipod that you could put your own music on, or switch over to satellite radio when you got bored of your own music. Kind of like the old tape player walkmans with build in radios.

Re:Public Radio

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in the public radio heaven: Twin Cities, MN. Not only we have a classical and news channels but also an alernative/eclectic/rock/whatever station with 0 commercials: check it out sometime http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/services/th e_current/ [publicradio.org]. Not to mention an independent jazz (Jazz88) and community (KFAI) stations.

Re:Satellite Radio Sucks

[Brett Buck]

Sucks is a strong word, but hi-fi it ain't. I went back and forth with Sirius over the sound quality, and they were pretty responsive and helpful, but they couldn't fix it. Lots of assuming that "my equipment was bad" - I was discussing my home system and mentioned the various high-end (real high-end, not 'audiofile' "good-sounding speaker wire and shakti stones" crap) parts, like my semi-custom AVA amplifier, and they mentioned that I might "upgrade" to Pioneer or Yamaha, for example. But the bottom line was the sound issues are a function of the encoding. It's not very good. The kicker was when I hooked up to the streaming audio over the internet and it was absolutely no different than the broadcast sound.

      It's *very* obvious in the DJ speaking voices, but it happens in the music similarly. The worst is a sort of a "hollow" reverb effect.

      By the way, the best feature IS the streaming audio, which is free if you subscribe to the broadcast service (or, is included, if you prefer that perspective).

      I listened to mine on broadcast for 6 straight days on a car trip, and I had a lot of opportunity to compare it to FM stations along I-80. The best Sirius channels are nowhere near as good in terms of audio quality as a good FM station, and the talk channels are worse than AM. I tried various encoding schemes from CD to compare, and somewhere in the range of a 96 kbps MP3 was pretty comparable to the very best Sirius channels. In other words, just barely good enough for most people, and not a whole lot worse from what a lot of people tolerate on their iPods (128 kbps is what I think you get from the ITMS - whatever it is it's on the edge of tolerable quality-wise). Which I guess is what they were shooting for.

      couldn't even find a bit rate low enough to replicate the worst of the talk channels.

      I think it's *probably* worth the money, but if you are expecting CD quality sound you will be sorely disapppointed.

      Brett

King Radio is dead, love live King Podcast

[Urd]

I seriously think that radio in it's traditional sense is already dead, it just hasn't stopped moving yet. Podcasts have replaced it for me, I even get my old favorite radio shows as podcasts now (from the same makers no less).

Lots of people don't have access to podcasts yet but it won't be long until they are easier and more accessible then radio.