Do we really care if we're listening to radio through a digital stream or on an old fashioned FM reciever? Probably not, if the content itself is appreciated. James Cridland calls himself a radio futurologist, and blogs about radio. Below is a section from his blog.
"The best thing that could happen to radio is that we stop talking about platforms, and start talking about content. Nobody, but nobody, cares about how they get content. Podcasts, online, downloads, on-demand, live, streaming, FM – they’re all just ways for our audience to get great content." (http://james.cridland.net/blog/the-future-of-radio-1-the-best-thing/)
So why does it matter if we listen to radio digitally or by FM? Digital radio technology can map properties of the listener, creating an oppurtunity for targeted advertising.(http://venturebeat.com/2011/01/12/future-of-radio/)
I think all radio (except perhaps emergency broadcasts) will be distributed digitally in a few years as gadgets capable of a wireless 3g/4g increase and the industry realizes the money to be made through targeted advertisement. What do you think?
That's a good point. I have also noticed this "preoccupation" with the distribution channel by people working *in* radio but don't see how that becomes very important for us consumers...
ReplyDeleteI can see some other effects though, for example "better" use of the spectrum (more radio channels in the same frequency space with digital instead of analog signals).
Do note that I have a new interface element in the blog; a list of blogs that are of interest to us. I put James Cridland's blog there and will extend the list with other suggestions of yours.
Daniel - If I reflect on today's first seminar, we talked about how with the broad usage of radio there were suddenly less stations around that people listened to and most of the content became more "popular". Derived from this I think that more channels wont cut it. It all comes down to content as Richard's post mentions.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing about this post is that it's interesting how broadly James Cridland technically defines radio: "Podcasts, online, downloads, on-demand, live, streaming, FM"
We talked about these in today's seminar and had an argument whether Spotify is also radio - it's streamed after all. Some radio channels also only play music, like Spotify, so why not categorize it under radio? Or maybe not?
I think the term Radio is deprecated and should be split into smaller terms covering the technical and content sides of current "Radio" e.g. Podcasts go mostly under Audio journalism,
technically they can be streamed and downloaded. There are also music podcasts where new, non pop, music is introduced.
Current radio is made up of distribution channels and content types. If I was to define radio then I would say that you receive it over the air and it has got both music and a level of journalism or entertainment shows. For everything else I would borrow the term audio from Adam Davidson.
It seems that this discussion has drifted quite a lot from the original post, but I want to comment on the last remark. I am not sure I agree with your definition of what radio is. For me, radio is a all about content, so it doesn't matter if it is received over the air or otherwise. Instead, I think that an important characteristic of radio is the fact that someone else choses a mix of audio content for you. This definition excludes Spotify, where you chose the songs you want to hear yourself. However, I'm not sure it captures the essence of what radio is either, because it excludes all types of podcasts...
ReplyDeleteI think that FM radio will remain in our society as a parallell to digital distributed radio for a considerable time. The main reson is, just as Kerstin mentioned (lecture 6/9), that poeple have a lot of FM recievers. Even if early adopters have thrown out these long ago, lots of people still have them and use them. They are an established media form and as long as people have the devices and use them, content will likely be produced.
ReplyDeleteOk, but since there are considerable advantages with digital radio, among others a better use of frequencies, why don't politicans decide to shut off FM? Sort of giving the "not so early adopters" of digital radio a little push in the right direction? As Kerstin told us, people not only have a lot of FM recievers, they have spent a lot of money on them, so politicians won't be keen to tell them their investments are worthless.
Further, if I understand you right, you mean that emergency broadcasts will still be aired non-digitally at the FM band? In that case people still need to have a FM reciever, but only if something fatal happens. I'm not sure what the citizens/consumers would think about that...Are you?