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Who Needs Radio?
DragonMagic writes "MSNBC asks what many /.ers have been asking: Who needs the radio anymore? Rather, it goes on to really ask, who needs the RIAA anymore? With online music distribution sources, television, and the internet itself, how much longer will it be before the radio, and the RIAA, will be an obsolete means to promote artists?"
who needs the RIAA anymore?
Ask any filesharer and I'd imagine their answer would be "not me".
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
Why do you assume that only music is played over the radio? I listen to NPR for hours every day on my daily drive to/from work.
It is very usefull in the car... Until we can have WIFI on every road...
it's all the same anyway. no matter where you go and what radio station you listen to...the same songs you hear on a like radio station in california will be the same songs you hear on a like station in wyoming or iowa. purely crap if you ask me.
"Good god people, we would have accepted 'bow-wow' or 'ruff'...Ah! Rough, just the way your mother likes it Trebek."
I don't. Artists aren't helped by it (most don't get any airplay). Nobody needs it but for a few executives praying to keep their organization above water until they retire early. What BS.
Do you want to remove linux?
I couldn't live without NPR. I don't listen to music on the radio because it stinks, but I listent to NPR every day.
Personally I have trouble driving and watching TV or surfing the net.
Anyone who doesn't have fast internet access or a television (or who doesn't want to pay for cable television).
Anyone who likes to camp and take a $5 transistor radio along, rather than lug a satellite uplink system for online-access.
Anyone who drives, and likes to have music or blather going while doing it (driving, that is).
In short, a LOT of people.
I love my dose of news in the morning - tuning into KQED/NPR is part of the communte, despite having an IPOD at hand. Radio is here to stay!
Cheers, Nostrada
Maybe 'we' dont need them, but their miniturization and tiny cost make them a difficult technology to let go of, if you look across the demographic spectrum.
To say nothing about me prefering drivers listening to the radio rather than watching TV, if they are interested in having somebody else picking the tunes
Just some stupid thoughts.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Radio, who needs a radio??! Ready, Harry? ..ing...i ng bird don't....
Yeah!
Mock...
Yeah!
Yeah!
Bird!
Yeah!
YEAH!
Yeah!
Mock
etc etc
Damn, I can't tell if I'm being serious or sarcastic. I hate when that happens.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Not very soon. People said television would kill radio. Radio's supposed to die off now? Get real.
and who really cares...
The problem is that the 25 mile long ethernet cable running to my car gets tangled too easy.
albeit perhaps in a different form. People will listen to it for live news and talk shows, if not for music anymore. RIAA on the other hand...
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
Or, to be more specific, I love a few radio stations. WFMU (wfmu.org; 91.1 in the NYC/NJ area), KFJC, a few other great stations. The radio we don't need is all the monopolized Clear Channel stations. We all know they suck. But great, personal, free-form radio is still out there, and with web streaming is thankfully more available than ever. Maybe I'm crazy, but I like to be surprised by what I like once in a while. Without WFMU, I'd be listening to the same stuff over and over. If you're tired of radio, you're listening to the wrong stations.
"..Carson Daly is arguably the most important deejay (vee-jay?) around -- is radio even relevant anymore?"
Your god damn right arguably!!!
I have a Cig, but do you have a light?
I listen to the radio all the time in the car whilst driving. Its a much safer option than tape, CD or MP3. Less fiddling about changing song and the like. I just poke a button and I've changed channel. Radio's 'killer app' has always been being able to listen to music in the car for me. Better than listening to people honk at me when I cut them up at junctions anyway.
I get news and sports live, tunes on iPod.
... or did everyone in the world become a computer user/music downloader over night?
...
Not everyone has a PC and not everyone get's their taste of new music from the interent.
In fact I would say that most people hear music on the radio then either buy the CD or download the mp3.
I doubt that services iTunes will make radio stations disappear
"Yeah Tommy, before Zee Germans get here
To assume that the RIAA won't continue simply because their current medium is obsolete is the height of idiocy. It is immediately obvious that iTMS and the like should at least keep them alive.
The promotional aspect of the RIAA will never go away. The manufacturing and distribution portion of their job will, for sure, though. As the RIAA has the most experience in promoting artists (as well as the most money and connections), they will likely continue to be the dominant players on that stage for the foreseeable future.
I believe anyone that drives a car may fancy a radio...
just why are you spending hours driving to and from work? do you have any idea how irresponsible that is?
Well, for starters, all those court clerks signing off on all those subpoenas. It's the first time they've ever gotten to play judge.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
My brother has an MP3 player in his car, and can use one disk per week without repeating a single track. So for road trips, yah---screw it. But a ball game on a summer night, a college football game, NPR's Morning Edition, I gotta have radio.
This is not my sandwich.
No one "Needs" the Radio anymore. Nor does anyone "Need" TV anymore. No one "Needs" the computer! Although things become obsolete, does that mean it's a death sentence for that platform? Record Players date back to Thomas Edison, yet they are still in widespread use, despite considerably more advanced mediums. Tape Backups are obsolete, but they still the #1 backup solution. And what about TV? We certainly have the capabilities and motives to make video a computer only affair. Why isn't it already so? No, we don't need radio. The reason it's still around is convenience, and nostalgia.
And why did you staple the trout to the RAM?
Radio will be around for a while. It's a great communication medium. Especially for 3rd world countries. Also what about the people that don't sit at their desk? Labourers and the like get through the day with the radio. Their management staff would seriously object to having a tv or other expensive and distracting piece of equiptment nearby. Besides, with all the crap that's on tv, radio seems to be the last haven of decency left in the world
Maybe I just starting to get old, but NPR is a good way to stay abreast of the latest news during my daily commute and provides some sanity, compared to TV news stations like FoxNews. As for commercial radio, besides to occasional classic rock channel, I've found that local college radio has the best offerings.
Independent stations still exist. When I lived in Chicago I listened to WXRT. In Boston, I listened to WXRV. In NYC there is always WBAI. In fact, there are a small handful of radio stations that aren't owned by the ClearChannel monopoly. These stations play what they want to play. They aren't beholden to the RIAA and they aren't forced to play what the company tells them to play. I like radio. I'd much rather listen to a good radio program than veg out on TV. I can listen to the radio and work on my computer at the same time without the visual distraction of television.
Tom Petty hit the nail on the head with his song "The Last DJ" --
Well you can't turn him into a company man
You can't turn him into a whore
And the boys upstairs just don't understand anymore
Well the top brass don't like him talking so much,
And he won't play what they say to play
And he don't want to change what don't need to change
There goes the last DJ
Who plays what he wants to play
And says what he wants to say, hey hey hey...
And there goes your freedom of choice
There goes the last human voice
There goes the last DJ
Or other original programming (e.g. NPR, etc.)? I listen to Lex & Terry every morning, in the bathroom and on the way to work. Audio streaming is not going to easily fix the bathroom situation, much less be viable in my car. That's why I need radio.
Well, I have been hearing most of the new music I am interested in via Internet broadcasting via iTunes. Between that and listening to NPR, the radio is almost useless for me now.
Interestingly, for those users of OS X, there is also a new shareware release of a very promising looking Internet broadcast application that easily shares your iTunes library. Check it out here. It's called Nicecast.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Anyone moving probaly wants radio.
Broadcast is reasonably efficient, particularly when you get many listeners.
I like my car radio. Although in many areas the radio stations REALLY suck.
kc0dxh is asking what /.ers have been asking -
who needs Michael anymore? With bloggs as big as they are, why not just post random entries from member blogs?
--- "1.21 Jigawatts!" -Doc
How are artists going to become popular now? Will giant rock concerts become a thing of the past because no one group will have such a large listening base?
As a college radio DJ and news director, I think radio still has a very valid place. It's a way to gain exposure to new music (again, talking independent stations), expose others to your kind of music, hear the thoughts of others on the air, and it has a human component that can't be simulated with a playlist.
Radio does not require changing a CD while driving, booting up your computer, or buying any expensive equipment. All you need is a $20 stereo.
I think what we will see is a movement towards more non-traditional radio distribution methods. For example, more satellite and Internet stations that can be tuned into easily with a cheap device. Then you'll be able to listen to the station of your choice on-demand without worrying about leaving the signal range or going behind a hill.
The technology has been around for a very long time, and broadcast radio will probably outlive us all.
Using relatively simple and affordable technology, radio is a great medium to broadcast a message to a big audience. Even when the power goes out, all networks are fried and most infrastructure desroyed, radio is there. And its there as an important means for any government to communicate in such situation. If we'd loose the architecture, we might loose a medium that can save many lives when needed.
And yes, i mean broadcast radio there, since it is vital that recievers are common among the population.
However, radio's function in promoting music will probably diminish over the next decade(s), and largely be replaced by streaming etc.
at least the spammers of radio (ie legitimate companies, usually) don't launch DDOS attacks on those who wish to ignore them. Radio is regulated and that means it has somewhat better quality control.
Considering how easy it is for malicious attackers to bring down networks through DDOS, etc. it is useful to have a backup means for communications. And the electromagnetic spectrum is pretty much guaranteed to exist 8) Of course, you can jam that, too, but a script kiddy or spammer doesn't usually have such equipment.
Mr Tickles does.
How else is he gonna work those hams?
How does that change the question? Can't you theoretically get talk radio content over, say, the Internet?
While driving?
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
As far as Radio being unimportant in promoting musicians, that's been that way for some time. Once radio stations consolidated heavily, and playlists became the same pretty much nationwide, all radio became was one large commercial for the artists the music studio honchos thought would bring them the biggest checks. When's the last time you heard anything decent on a radio station besides a public radio one?
Bottom line, commercial radio and the RIAA are, and have been obsolete, for some time, but they're (the RIAA especially) not about to go down without a fight. Let's just hope they don't manage to take out commercial music in all forms with them. Someone will find the way to make music both accessible and profitable for artists and the company(ies) promoting them in the future, but I somehow doubt it'll be any of the current big music studios out there now, and definitely not all the radio stations owned by that one big group (can't remember their name offhand).
I couldn't live without music. I don't listen to NPR on the radio because it stinks, but I listen to music every day.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I need it, I think anyone who drives needs it. I want LOCAL information, not some XM station that doesn't even know where I live. I luckily have two great stations close by that I listen to daily. One is a college radio station from the University of TN, the other is a fiercely independent and non commercial purveyor of the best in alt-country, folk, blues, celtic, and bluegrass. If you like that sort of thing, check them out at WDVX. I could never purchase or download all of the great material they play, they are not replaceable.
Where are you going to hear a band for the first time? Are you going to trust all of the users on the P2P networks in that these "new artists" (filename renamed) are new artists, and even if they are legitamite new artists, are you going to like the style, genre of music? Radio stations are there to sift out a lot of this for you. Yes, Infinity owns most of them, and yes they play a lot of things per request of the record labels, but there are lots of legitamate radio stations that are free to play anything and everything (of course in the genre of the station).
You can't really think that WE will do it on our own. I personally don't have that kind of time nor the will to search for good music on my own. There is just too much out there. I'd have to go to every local bar here in NYC to see even 1% of them, and then what?
Getting rid of radio is stupid. I see no real reason to get rid of it. I do see a reason to make it less monopolistic and let the smaller stations take control of themselves, but I see NO good reason to get rid of them.
"Time is long and life is short, so begin to live while you still can." -EV
since I have a Audiotron and most, if not all, local radio stations are on the web. So instead of getting a radio for my livingroom, I got the Audiotron. And I must say that you really learn about the quality(or lack of) your internet provider when using it. Very annoiying to have just a 30 sec drop every hour, which it turned out that I had.
Also during the last power black-out, I found my old battery powered radio(and imagine, the battery worked) and I was nice to hear what was going on. My first thought when it went black was to turn on the tv and see what was going on. 8-) The cell phone network I was on died after 5 hours. and so the old radio was the only way for me to know what was going on. I did find one cellphone connection working when going to the top of the building, I could browse the news sites using GPRS and Opera on my Nokia.
But still, the radio still was the only reliable/proper functionen source of information.
Radio will be used for a long long time to come.
Ever try to watch TV without using your eyes? It is a visual medium. Most TV shows are unexciting and moronic without the visuals. Try this the next time you watch tv, tape your eyes shut, and just listen. How long before you are bored.
Radio, requires more imagination, more intellegence, and is better stimulation for the brain. Leftwingers have NPR, Rightwingers have Rush (well not at the moment).
Try making sense of beer commercials while blind. "And twins!". Lame. And don't get me started on Porn. What is the point of THAT if you are blind?
You see TV requires more attention while using less brain. Radio requires LESS attention while using MORE brain. Ever try taking apart an engine while watching TV?
I think you get the picture.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
We went on to discuss, however, that *regional* bands with not much beyond their own PR machine can and do acheive success in a DIY way. The local music scene of Columbus, OH, where I'm from for instance, is very encouraging.
A local band called Wigglepussy, Indiana is having so much success behind thier own marketing, that it spawned somewhat of a marketing-firm in and of itself.
I think this is what we need to... music from us, and for us, from where we are.
The only thing artists still need is someone to produce their music; that is record it, mix it, and edit it. And even those things are slipping from the big boys with help from the personal computer.
After artists can independantly make a quality product, they will be able to distribute it as they please, to the benefit of both fans and the artists (who will make a considerably higher percentage).
The last stage will be slow and painful, as it always is. And that is overcoming the entrenchment of large corporations. People already listen to music from RIAA labels, and that drives many artists to those labels. That is a recursive cycle held up only by itself. Once there's a crack in the dam, it will all fall to pieces. But making that first crack is harder than it sounds.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Lets assume radio is dead and artists can distribute their own songs and don't need the RIAA anymore. They will still need help with a server that hosts the songs, encoders to digitize the songs, advertising agents to promote concerts, etc. Now all that may become enough overhead where they make a deal with some large company to do all that for them in return for a cut of the revenue made from the song... and woops there's another RIAA equivalent company that controls the artists. The reality of today is you cannot get rid of large corporations from your life. All you can do is regulate them
homogenized monoculture sucks.
m.
ps mod parent up
I agree with what this article has to say, that television has become the medium of choice for new "artists." These artists are of course less artistic and more a product of the industry, which makes TV perfect for them. The new pop stars are just shooting all the angles with this television thing, radio will always have its place for new, real artists, not to mention DJ's and people who enjoy classic hits.
No one NEEDS radio, but lets face, although MP3 players and CD/DVDs are great and work perfect in both cars, office, and home use how would you be exposed to NEW or Indepedant music without the radio?
Sure you could type in random names in kazaa and see what comes up, but lets face it your listenign to the music you are right now because of
1) A friend told you
2) You heard a song on the radio and dloaded it from kazaa
3) You heard a song on MTV and dloaded it on kazaa
So if you didn't have radio you would be left with MTV and VH1 telling you what songs are cool (SCARY considering I just saw a new Madonna/Britney video that sounded and looked HORRIBLE)
Getting back to my original point is that you need Radio to be able to find new music to listen too, unless you love everything you hear on MTV and VH1
Ave Molech Setting
This article and its headline question demonstrates an all new high in the level of ignorance on Slashdot.
Are you intentionally posting flamebait or are really that fucking stupid?
The dirty word that I never hear mentioned about the RIAA is that they are really no more than a bunch of record exec goons that are guilty of collusion. They've been essentially dubbed collusive as a result of losing that price fixing suit a year or so ago. They control prices, product, and are given the free reign to block competition. They are really no different from OPEC or DeBeers.
Who needs Oil when we have (someday) hydrogen fuel cells? No one, as long as OPEC is around. Diamonds are incredibly common gemstones, but they are the most expensive, because the product is under the complete control of one group of profiteers. The only difference between deBeers, OPEC, and the RIAA is that for some reason, the RIAA is the only one of those groups that is allowed to exist within the geopolitical boundaries of the United States. OPEC and DeBeers theoretically would have never been allowed to survive in the U.S. in the past. (We can also surely group the MPAA into this group, and their new ban of screeners is further proof of collusion used to kill competition.)
So why do we need RIAA?
Because they say we do.
Almost every university campus has an independent radio station where almost anybody can get airtime for a few hours, and say/play what they want. I know that very few people tune in, but I really enjoy it. You get a very eclectic collection of music, and usually some "interesting" individuals. I don't think radio will ever die, even the commercial stations, mostly due to car drivers and the ability to hear music that you didn't have to actively search out, even if the music is only being played because RIAA lined that radio station's coffers.
Until they can find a good way of listening to music on the road then radio will always exist,
Most people love listening to the radio because it's very diverse,
You know you've got everything from Talk back to rock n roll,
As much as talk back radio generally isn't my thing, it does play a large part in the radio scene
Besides "everybody" knows the RIAA's just a joke. A big stoopid joke.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Who needs MSNBC anymore?
Do they ever provide any first-breaking news, unique insight, or ask questions what seem anything more than a cheap ploy for mindless debate?
I listen to the radio for a couple hours each morning in a semi-state of sleep .. half dreaming about what I am listening to .. thinking about how much longer I should stay in bed ..
In a state of emergency (ie. blackout) I prefer the radio over television. I also like listening to the top 100 albums of all time every labour day weekend.
So I don't think radio is going anywhere anytime soon.
One thing about the radio (as far as music playing) is that it does introduce you to songs that you might not hear otherwise. If people are free to pick the music, then it follows that it would be harder to get exposed to different bands, etc. Right now you turn the radio on and you get fed, they might play a band you never heard of, and wouldn't ordinarily listen to. As online music catches on, one is dependant on word of mouth (via most frequently downloaded lists, etc), which is also true today, but you don't get that "incidental" exposure as you might. It will be interesting to see if this phenomenon is actually good or bad overall for the industry (i.e. musicians, not the RIAA).
MS is going to start selling music players and has it's own distribution system that competes with the RIAA.
NBC is using Fox's success with a music program to bolster the relevance of TV (and thereby its own relevance).
Gotta love "news" from broadly diverse companies with vested interests. What next, the Philip Moris poll: Do kids prefer menthol or non-menthol? (great, because we offer both!)
I haven't listened to comemrcial radio on any sort of regular basis in at least 6 years. I just got sick of hearing the same 10 songs over and over again at the same time everyday. Granted, the local university stations like CKLN had great non-repeating shows, but the timeslots aren't always convenient.
:)
And I still find plenty of new music to buy at the stores these days, and not from being exposed to it any P2P network. I'm just as picky as ever!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Radio is still a relevant technology, and will probably remain relevant for a long period of time. This is a simplistic article, and it talks about music and image being inseperatable, and goes on about the Music Industry only. It assumes that the only purpose of the radio is to play records, and that information can't be put on the radio. (Of course, it's written by MSNBC, so what do you expect).
Community Radio, on the other hand, is extremely important, since it serves to tie the community together and to play music and ideas not normally heard by the mainstream media. Similarly Campus-based Community Radio stations in Canada also live by this mandate. (College Stations to the US are also like this to a much, MUCH lesser degree.)
What's really interesting is what CMJ was going on about for their yearly conference about there being a job in "the business" when you graduate at their yearly conference for Music Directors at Campus station. It seems that the only thing that will die with radio is the radio promoters, since stations will just use file sharing to get the tracks they need anyway, top 40 or not, since they already pay the RIAA their tax.
it kind of makes me wonder at what point the "cost of illegal downloads" actually approaches the cost of payola for radio play (or "distributors" that work as agents).
imagine, payola ends, and suddenly certain songs flood the p2p networks, or "download centers".
When your city is burning and you want news, it is much more up-to-date and more widespread than an internet site......
Fellowship 9/11
You seem to think everybody is a iPod-toting, wifi-enabled slashdot geek....
I listen to the radio. NPR and talk mostly, but radio signals nonetheless. And I am as tech-savvy as anybody else (well, probably not, but you get the point) and still rely on a century-old technology everyday...
As for the rest of the world, well, my Mom doesn't even know what the Internet is, so don't bother telling her about file-sharing! And her TV is used to watch news and sitcoms, so she too NEEDS the radio. Like many others in this world!
I actually listen to the AM stations, couldn't care less about FM. There are many interesting shows and discussions and I can listen while I'm working, unlike TV.
My musical tastes tend toward classical, jazz, some older rock, some avant garde, some weird stuff.
How do I learn about new music? From friends, live concerts and now free sampler CDs at places like Borders. Yes, I'm also now trying the Internet occasionally -- to satisfy my curiosity and broaden my horizons.
I make sufficient money to purchase CDs from people I really like. For instance, paying $15 or more for a CD at Maryland's Renfest is reasonable to me. Of course, I've heard the artists and know I'll like their work. It also helps to know the money is going to the artists, not some huge RIAA member.
There's another reason I'm listening to less radio that wasn't mentioned in the article. Radio quality is declining. Here's the current playlist for WGMS (a Washington, DC classical station):
Mozart's Jupiter symphony is more than 9 minutes long. WGMS now seems to be going in much more for short selections than full works -- especially at drive time. I'd rather stick with my CD player. No, I don't get exposed to new music (precious little of that on any radio station around here). But I also don't get pestered with commercials.
"Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- B. Franklin
Now you understand RIAA's War on P2P? It's not about piracy, it's about control of the industry.
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill RIAA
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
and will be around as long as that is the case.
Barring that X17 Solar Ejection rushing down on us even now.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Radio, Sat Radio, iTunes, Napster2 Et. Al. are enforceable means for the recording industry to attain distribution.
Portable media are demonstrably unenforceable anymore. Or more correctly, the ease with which abuses can happen has risen sufficiently to make enforceability questionable.
Given RIAA isn't having a whole lot of success with it's current measures, and if they feel they are losing that much revenue, I would tend to think the smart business move is away from portable media to more enforceable paradigms.
If you think they are profiteering mercenaries now, just wait, if they have to make that kind of shift, it's gonna cost. Who do you think is going to end up footing the bill?
Hey folks, they can use technology to meet their goals too...
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
With online music distribution sources, television, and the internet itself, how much longer will it be before the radio, and the RIAA, will be an obsolete means to promote artists?
Would be better to ask: How much longer will it be before artists no longer need to be paid for their work? Look, if you believe the recording industry is no longer needed (don't act like the RIAA has some kind of mystical power -- it just represents the interests of its members), and is such a bad deal for performers, why would they agree to recording contracts in the first place? And if there is so much money to be made distributing your product for free on the internet, why aren't performers abandoning the recording industry in droves?
The truth is, "artists" are not the only ones who add value to their product. Without the marketing and production expertise of major recording companies, they cannot produce a product that is competitive in the pop music market. This is simply the truth: Look at the majority of music traded on peer-to-peer services. Its all pirated music owned by RIAA member companies. That is what the consumer wants, and the existing structure will either continue to exist, or the entire music business will collapse due to piracy. There is no middle ground.
When will the RIAA and radio be obsolete way of promoting artists? Now of course!!
its obvious to all of us that the radio and riaa don't promote anything new and groundbreaking in music, that's what I would call purposeless. The only reason they are still in existence is the refuse to concede defeat. They also have a lot of money to see them through for years, and most importantly, you the consumer keep giving them money! So boycott! After they have spent all their money on suing grannies and 8-year olds they can fold and we can maybe get some cheap office furniture out of it and the world might be a slightly more sane place to live.
P.S. I don't want to see the medium of radio die. I just think the control over the airwaves should shift and give someone else a chance to do something productive with it.
Radio rules! A lightweight, robust, inexpensive receiver, a fast (speed of light) broadcast medium that can theoretically support infinite users, and has plenty of bandwidth for multiple audio streams... what a great concept!
.. the "global" data sources can't touch this.
Just one little problem... NOTHING ON! The RIAA has strangled most of it through their own greed. Sure there are some good stations here and there (I used to pick up college radio station in my bedroom [and nowhere else in the house] as a kid, and MAN Did I broaden my horizons.. Einsturzende Neaubauten, Chapterhouse, Cocteau Twins, The Who, all in one show!) but mostly it's crap. Nowdays I rely on mailing lists and P2P to find my indie music (IDM/electronic mostly).
Radio has one more possibility: local news and events
So here's an idea: let's let radio die completely. Then, let it rise from the ashes again using *local* *independent* stations!
Radio is not needed in it's current form.
With radio stations doing payola (and those that believe that this is a dead practice, think again), and giving air time to those that pay for ir (be it an artist or an advertiser), radio can simply not survive. The fact that XM and Sirus are continuing to have their customer base grow is proof of this. Why listen to radio when you can pay a small fee and have more chances and stations to listen to what YOU want.
What's happening here is a consumer-led based market. Instead of people TELLING the consumer what they want/need. The consumer is telling the buisness what they want/need. Most of the public hates radio in it's current form (music stations or not). They hate the commercials and thus have been slowly moving towards commercial free radio with stations that are run by people like them, so they have more of chance of hearing what THEY want. This is also evident in the fact that things like iTunes are having heavy turn outs, people will buy what they want to. And if you give them a big enough selection to rival the freebes out there, they will pay as long as they have the chance to actually pay for something they want.
Radio will never go away, however in it's current form I'm not sure how much longer it stay that way. As for the RIAA, well they're going to start eating their words as buisness like iTunes continue to pull buisness.
Carolyn Brown if you are responsible for that ignorent statment you are one really ignorent bitch...
Radio is one of the last good forms of media, preferably AM talk radio, and not to mention amature radio especially HF (below 30 megahertz) 160 thru 10 meters
you want the radio to be successful again? tie up unused FM/AM frequencies to a simple internet interface so users can buy/lease airtime to play DJ and promote songs they love. sorry all the casey kasem's of the world, but you are being outsourced (into the computer room's of the average american).
smd4985
Slowly the vampire turned as he sucked a cock.
how much longer will it be before the radio, and the RIAA, will be an obsolete means to promote artists?"
Who would need promotion when they could go on stage and kiss Madonna (for the chick artists), males I guess could kiss that American Idol dork Clay*
Seriously though, I don't look at radio as dead. Considering that, before I buy any cd, I often hear it on radio first. Besides when I'm my other digs (IT dept. at a college) I often enjoy hearing the radio as opposed to the same old collection. As for the RIAA... What about them? They don't bother me, sure they're borderling Nazi's to some, but I have no reason to worry about them, let alone waste any more time trolling about them.
MoFscker
I guess the subject is quite US centric.
Here, inSwitzerland, we get many quality programs, independant music, unusual jazz or classical music.
Decent objective news...
So it is quite obvious we agree to stick to this medium because of the fantastic experience we get : various unheard songs, news...
So, hey : it is not because US radio sucks (not a flame, just a deduction after the question itself) that it should suck anywhere else.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
I found an interesting website for searching for radio stations in a particular area. Also has links as to whether it is on the web or not!
http://www.radio-locator.com/
All references to the meaning (and age) of a popular Queen song aside (old news, this one), I found it very interesting to wake up first thing this morning with the news that my city was on fire.
So I guess we need radio because we need some kind of useful signal to feed to our radio alarm clocks.
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
I live in Oakland, and listen to KCSM at home all the time. Like it so much I am fixing up my KT-7500 I found at craigslist.org with instructions from fmtunerinfo.com ... now that is the power of the internet!
Are we getting a little bit ahead of ourselves here. Not everyone in the world has access to the internet let alone tv. For most radio is the only access they have to news, music, etc. besides of course word of mouth and newspaper.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. --Edmund Burke
I think internet radio is the future of music, and this *could* come in the form of p2p, but don't count on it... p2p is not the end-all of music.
C'mon people, at least radio hasn't become a mass-media wasteland yet... (at least not to the degree that music videos already have) Give it some credit guys.
But as far as listening to some music or news, just remember that less than half of the US is populated by Internet users. And it will be a VERY long time before the Internet enjoys the coverage area, simplicity, reliability, and cost of equipment factors of radio. Remember, lots of areas in this country still have pulse phone equipment.
The point of the article isn't that radio has no place now, it's that article has no place in the future as a medium for music distrubtion.
yes radiow will always have a place, listen to your NPR and traffic reports etc...sure
But find new music? technology's coming up with better ways to do that as pay-per-track systems become more prevalent, there'll be much better systems for tracking what music users are listening to...
Which means you can go to their site, find good music, find music similar to music you like, and sample it or pay a small fee for it, rather then listening to the radio in the hopes they'll play something similar..and you can do it all on your time not a DJs..
or, even better...you can go their site..find good music..and download it for free elsewhere;)
--Shadar
This station is hands down the best radio station I have listened to in my entire life. Hit it up at kexp.org they have a wide variety of streams, archived shows, good hosts, good shows...
This
It *rocks*! Dozens and dozens of streams of everything you can imagine, including simul-cast streams from various sources.
And of course if you click on a streaming-mp3 link in a browser, iTunes adds it to your library.
For those Slashdotters from foreign lands just tuning in:
NPR is a good way to stay abreast of the latest news during my daily commute and provides some sanity, compared to TV news stations like FoxNews.
NPR is left wing (although it seems middle-of-the-road to liberals). Fox News is right wing (although it seems middle-of-the-road to conservatives.) NPR is commercial-free, being underwritten by corporations, donations, and tax dollars (to the great dismay of conservatives). Fox is a commercial enterprise owned by Murdoch and the top-rated newschannel on cable/satellite (to the great dismay of liberals).
Now, draw up sides, and... engage!
It just doesn't contain ads, music, or talk-back. In Australia, Radio National (tax paid-for radio) has rational people talking about all kinds of shit from science through to sociology to comedy to lectures from brilliant dudes to long discussions about topics that other "news" services want to turn into sound bites, like the legitimacy of war, marriage, religion, etc.
It is definitely not teh ghey, but sometimes they talk about that too.
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
I listen to the radio daily, and I use BSD. Do the math.
If you think radio is only a music delivery system, then sure that model has problems.
However, if you think radio is an information delivery system, then you might also think it will be with us for some time.
Talk radio is everywhere. I'm a die hard NPR listener, but also check out other local talk radio from time to time. It seems like talk radio will be around for a while, since news and commentary seem popular.
Perhaps radio has figured that out as well, considering ClearChannel's ubiquitous presence in the talk-radio landscape.
A Human Right
Huge install base in cars, where most people listen to the radio, and at work in offices, where people often aren't allowed to access sites that would provide streaming music or downloads. So they bring in a radio. I wouldn't be surprised if radio as we know it doesn't last 50 years, but I'd be surprised if it didn't last 20. As for RIAA, I can only hope they go away a lot sooner.
That's gotta fit into your schema somewhere
I'm on a Solar Flare, radio....
A solar flare, oh oh, radio....
Sue the sun! We didn't authorize this!
Ain't we got fun?
-- Loudog
FM Music Radio programming just sucks. Check out sattellite radio and you'll understand just how entertaining radio can be. It's well worth the $10/month.
(I didn't RTFA)
I'm glad someone recognizes that maybe the reason the RIAA fears MP3's is that MP3s eliminate the need for a record label.
It all depends where you are. Outside of the USA radio is actually not bad. I listen to it in the car and anywhere that there isn't an internet connection. I can listen to talk shows, documentaries and music. I also like it for its sheer simplicity. Everything you need to tune into a radio station fits on a 50c chip. That's why you can find cheep $3 radio walkmans. Try that with digital and you are adding extra processing and the nightmare of incompatible formats, codec and licensing agreements. Digital radio solutions cost of 100 times more.
In many places people can not afford to connect to internet or don't have acces to it. Anyone with a basic understanding of electronics can build a simple radio tuner and access the information they want to hear.
In fact a radio is one addition that I would love to see on the iPod. The jog dial is ideal for manual tuning, while the fast-forward and rewind buttons are good for jumping to tuned stations.
BTW does anyone know of a cheap radio solution for Linux or MacOS X based machines? I am thinking either USB or PCI based, USB probably being cheaper.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
In case you weren't affected by the GREAT FEARSOME BLACKOUT OF 2003 , those of us who were crowded around radios to get news.
Don't forget the 20 million so-called "dittoheads" that hang on Rush's every word every day. Republican shill talk radio has never been so popular (depending on where you read your stats).
There's big money in radio and the guy who owns it is raking it in.
Speak truth to power.
Actually, mp3-head-units & mp3 CD-players provide a great alternative to radio (or long ethernet cables). They also have none of the babble associated with radio-stations and radio-station DJs.
I know I make a 9 hour drive every month or so, and having something to listen to is great.
As far as the music stations go, good riddance. I haven't listened to those things since I was a child, and then I think the only reason I did was because I was forbidden to listen to "rock music" by my parents. Shortly after I was allowed, it magically ceased to be interesting.
Clear Channel stations are certainly not worth listening to. I used to think local call-in contests were bad enough, but Clear Channel has made them nationwide. Combine this with their highly censored playlists, their blind dedication to the war in Iraq coupled with sensationalist misreporting (a Clear Channel station here reported four buried vans in the desert as "Vindication for Bush: underground chemical weapons Labs were found today in Iraq") and their propensity for hiring the most moronic, annoying DJs possible, and you have the recipe for a radio station I never want to listen to. Contrast this with our local independent station, 99.5. They don't have call-in contests, you simply sign up as a "community member" of their station and they randomly give away concert tickets. They play an enormous variety of music, and it's rare to hear the same song played more than once in a single month. They have knowledgable DJs who discuss things you never knew about the music they play in a calm, conversational manner so it's pleasant to listen to. I conclude by saying, in the words of Frank Zappa, "KILL UGLY RADIO"
My commute in the morning is approximately one hour, from leaving my door to sitting at my desk. It doesn't have to be, but that is a nice round figure.
My commute in the evening is another hour.
In both directions I drive my car, ride a bus, and walk.
I have computers at home and work.
In the morning I would love to download a 64 or 32 meg audio file in mp3 format that contains the current news as of my downloading it. If I could capture an hour of CNN "Radio" in the morning, that would be sufficient. This would nicely fit on my
For the evening commute, I would rather listen to a fairly random selection of the music I happen to have on CD, but without having to carrying the CDs around. Again, grabbing a random 64 or 128M of them onto flash in MP3 format that I can listen to as I choose would suite me just fine.
Granted I would also like to be able to use Festival or other text to voice software to create lead in and exit tracks for the various pieces, so that I wouldn't have to try to figure out what was the previous bit, but that's just me.
That pretty much covers my desire for the trip to work and home. For longer trips my Jukebox is fine.
Having fun trying to figure out how to capture the news at this time. May have to get my BeBoxen back into the fray and just use that to get the job done.
The lead in and exit bits should be easy enough with a script to grab the title, artist and album information out of the mp3 tags.
If you are in your car, or otherwise listening to NPR, are you going to call in, or would you be just as happy to have a pre-recorded copy you could listen to, even if you are stuck in a tunnel some place?
The only reason I can see for listening to the radio in real-time these days is traffic reports. Even then, by the time the report gets around to where I am headed, I'm beyond the point of taking a different route anyway.
Just my opinion, feel free to state your own.
-Rusty
You never know...
There are people in this world without computers. And there are teen girls addicted to shopping at the mall. And not everyone will want to pay for satellite radio for that commute to work.
Mix the failings of Usenet with the shortcomings of the World Wide Web and the result is slashdot.
Currently, musical ability plays a back seat to how well the video production came off. Judgment of an artist's actual musical ability is often obscured by her video production values. Radio, on the other hand, allowed for a more "scientific" assessment of someone's musical skills. Many who have succeeded in the "video" realm, would not have made it when put under the impartial scrutiny of the radio receiver.
Ok, so that's three. I suck.
YaGottaListen. Not just because he's on ClearChannel and ClearChannel rules the formerly free world, but because he's fantastic.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
For sure. News stations that feature only news all the time are a godsend when commuting, and important in emergencies as well.
Remember The Blackout? I was at work patching the office for the Blaster worm when the lights went out. If it wasn't for radio and other wireless communication, we would have had no idea wtf was going on. Thankfully radio stations with reserve power managed to transmit so everyone could get into the car or use battery powered tranceivers to get the news updates.
I used to drive to and from Toronto all the time across a strech of the 401 and if it wasn't for 680 news I would have gotten into a lot of traffic jams.
Thus radio is still needed because it is an important way of disseminating information quickly, especially when only battery or small generator power is available.
At home I listen to the BBC's Radio Five Live for news and current events with an international perspective, NPR's program stream for interesting domestic programming that my local public radio station isn't playing at the time I choose to listen, and for music, an awesome jazz stream from Korea (they play some crap, but a lot of really great stuff too, and no the music isn't Korean).
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
If I want music in my car, I burn a CD.
Why listen to the radio for music, which is inevitably either playing music I don't want to hear, an ad, or a DJ's inane chatter?
On the other hand, I find my local news station is great listening while I'm commuting and trying to avoid traffic problems.
Rush Limbaugh (and his guest host's) 20 MILLION LISTENERS every week is pretty damn significant.
While it seems most slashdot readers are socialist left-wingers... some of us, myself included, listen to many hours of radio daily.
Of course that wouldn't occur to the slashdot moderator who accepted this story since nearly every successful talk radio program is conservative.
I might make one teensy comment though.
Don't write off the highschool kids.
C89.5 in Seattle, is, by far, the best music station in the city. Certainly eclectic, I was pretty shocked when I found out it was run out of a highschool.
The main value in radio is that it is far more democratic than TV. More stations with more points of view, less dominated by big corporate networks.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Anybody listen to AM radio recently? It's become mainly just a forum for talk shows and religious programming. XM looks to be the future of music radio. Better quality, and no more getting annoyed because the DJ doesn't tell you the name of the song he just played. The real question would be what happens to AM if FM turns into what AM is now?
DeviantArt Page
NSFWWhen TV first came out, everyone was predicting the death of radio. It hasn't happened, and it won't happen. It will become a little less important though.
Perhaps it's just me being overly cynical, but mayhaps M$ is pushing just a tad for online music more than radio through this "news"? How much of a stake does M$NBC still have in radio airwaves (ie, is it in their interest to sway public opinion more away from radio)?
... the end of the association is near ... :)
The thing I find more interesting is this: M$ takin a jab (indirectly) at the RIAA
topreacher@signature.slashdot.org 1% rm -rf sig
In a related story, everyone but MSNBC's 7 viewers ask: who needs MSNBC anymore?
I was just out in the wilderness camping this weekend, and I listened to the radio out there in the hills while I cooked dinner.
Why don't we ask, "Why have blogs anymore?" The blog/reader ratio is a lot closer to 1:1 than radio stations to listeners.
AM Radio is alive and well my friends. Sean Hannity! Rush! Savage! They are not the product of the RIAA... Now FM on the other hand. Yeah, that crap is D.E.A.D.
I just couldn't comprehend any more words on the page after that zinger ricocheted around my brain cavity.
Do the world a favor Go drive your VW SUV off a cliff!
I'm one of those people who spend all day long in my vehicle. I listen to radio for traffic reports, news, weather, and even music. I have XM radio, too. When I'm working at night I listen to George Noory (Art Bell's replacement) on XM. Got an MP3 of Coast to Coast AM handy?
I rarely listen to music on FM - too much of the same thing over and over; XM is the best for music of all kinds. FM could disappear tomorrow and I'd never know it.
AM is great for newstalk and traffic.
NPR sucks ass no matter what time of day it is - too biased toward the left. (That may get me modded down here on slashdot.)
mp3 killed the video star ...
http://www.somafm.com
http://www.radioparadise.com
http://www.xmradio.com/
Topic should have been "Who needs ClearChannel?"
Since the co-opting of Radio by ClearChannel I have barely listened to music on the radio at all, preferring News, etc on NPR; Sports (and sports-talk) on AM Radio; and of course Howard Stern (who is syndicated on Infinity, not CC).
For music, however, I trust my handy MP3 CD Player in the car and iPodon foot, and 128k and above net radio at home and work.
... and her (in)famous and entertaining interviews with Gene Simmons (http://freshair.npr.org/day_fa.jhtml?displayValue =day&todayDate=12/30/2002) and Bill O'Reilly (http://freshair.npr.org/day_fa.jhtml?displayValue =day&todayDate=10/08/2003)?
I am sure this has been the topic of an internal RIAA memo, or two!
The way to a man's heart is through the left ventricle
Those who want high fidelity sound without compromise will not accept it. MP3s are one of the most obvious examples of horrible sound quality, basically like lousy AM radio. No wonder kids these days (speaking like an old timer here) don't give a darn about sound quality. I listen to CDs but prefer vinyl, even though the latter has an occasional tick or pop, because it sounds more real. It works for me. I've got thousands of irreplaceable LPs with lots of great music, stuff you just can't get on any other format.
Radio is used for Talk Shows, for news, for music, for entertainment ... all from my car, or anywhere in the radio station's area. And it works. Instead, you say we should start getting all of that over the internet? They'd need to work on a lot of things first ...
... my radio just gets a little fuzzy, it doesn't cut out completely.
... so distributors have to be able to handle the bandwidth (instead of just getting to lots of people with no bandwidth issues via Radio).
... Radio isn't going anywhere. And why would we want it to?
1) Better Wi-Fi
2) I don't want to encounter any bandwidth issues either
I don't see how your proposition accomplishes anything other then taking what comes on my radio and instead do it over the internet. And polluting the air with wi-fi, or asking me to get something like XM Satellite radio.
Radio still nets millions and millions of dollars in advertising money. They can afford to pay people like Rush Limbaugh and Tom Leykus millions of dollars due to the advertising money they pull in. Radio is still very popular for elements other then music
You captured the whole thing perfectly! :-)
- sigs are for wimps.
I recently put XM in he car, and it is the only way to. After spending years listening to the AM/FM it can't be beat. It's amazing to listen to radio which isn't in the pockets of the big boys. Commercials are rare and if one comes on you just switch to one of the 100 other stations.
But what will happen with all the morning zoo crews?
"Rock-a-doodle-doo, you're listening to Bill and Marty on KBBL!"
Bill: Our topless story, President Clinton has launched a new website.
Marty: Uh-oh, wait, lemme guess. www. . (laughs)
Homer: Hehehehehe. Hehehehe..website.
Here in Australia we have a nationwide station "Triple J". Without which I would probably never encounter many of the great Australian and international bands I listen to. Why? because they give airtime to obscure indy bands and help develop and discover REAL (not singing heads from Idol et al) talent in Australia. TV and the internet (unless you drill deep or know where to go) doesnt make it easy to hear good music unless it is one of those rare quality bands which gets picked up by a major label.
my $0.02.
err!
jak
Well, personally I am introduced to new bands through many sources - friends, online previews, Apple store reccomendations, opening bands for other acts I like.
In the past years when I was listening to radio, I can think of exactly zero instances where in fact I was introduced to a band I bought music for.
Now if fact I do not listen to the radio at all in the car, but it seems like I am finding out about more new bands than before. In particular friends are probably the best way to get introduced to new music as almost every person seems to have some interesting bands I like that I've never heard of.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Can you say Clear Channel + Infinity = 90%
(yes, I'm old enough to remember more than one) everything failed. My internet connection went down, my TV went black, my electric lights went out ( my oil lamps chugged along like always).
My portable radio worked like a charm and the emergency generators the radio stations employ kept them on the air.
Promoting RIAA "stars" is hardly the only use for radio. In fact, small radio stations are still the most used medium for promoting obscure music unaligned with the RIAA, why do you think they oppose the proliferation of small neighborhood radio stations?
Radio is one of the true modern marvels, its usefulness is far from past.
KFG
The CBC and BBC serve pretty important roles in the culture of their respective countries... I think CBC radio is my biggest source of news. Lots of local stuff that no one else covers.
That is all... for anyone who doesn't know, it's broadcast from a community college in the los altos hills in California(89.7)
The writer of the article obviously doesn't listen to the radio a lot. Radio is only partially about getting music to people. The biggest money in radio is not with music, it's with talk radio.
The writer seems to believe that the only thing that keeps radio on is music. Does MSNBC hire teenagers now to write their articles?
I've gotten soooo fucking tired of corp-rock muzak with each station having a limited yearly playlist of 10 songs a day...cycled. In fact, it's so damn repetitive that it drives me stock-raving mad..nutzoid even. So for now on, I only listen to the radio when I'm in the mood for talk radio on the AM band.
Life is not for the lazy.
I listen to readio for all my team's football (soccer) matches. Could I use the internet for it? Well, I could if the radio I like most (guaiba) had a big server, but they do have a small one. Plus, I still connect using modem at home, no DSL/Cable/etc. So I don't want to pay a bill for 90 minutes of game in the end of the month :P
two words: automobile, driving
hello?
sometimes it is possible to be perched so high upon the crest of the technological elite peering so hard into the future, that you completely lose touch with common sense
the notion that radio will ever go away is completely ridiculous
there will always be common scenarios where auditory entertainment/ information media sources is preferable to visual entertainment/ information, for safety, convenience, whatever
really, when i say always, i mean always
if you refute my claim, show me a future where there does not exist an occupation/ pasttime/ state of being/ etc. where auditory input only is superior because visual input needs to be unimpeded or devoted to something more important/ more preferable
certainly radio will EVOLVE over time, and focus on other things than it did in the past, which it obviously already has as television destroyed it as the prime source of mass entertainment
but really: radio will never go away
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
acknowledge us lefties and our favorite NPR affiliates.
I fucking HATE Rush Limbaugh, but god bless his big fat mouth and his big fat show. I even listen to it, just go get my stomach acid acting up.
Of course, the genreral population couldnt give a shit about talk/news radio.
Listening to people talk is hard.
You have to think about what your're listening to.
Thinking is hard.
Talk radio has a near zero chance of a car full of mallrats calling in a on a cellular phone, making a few poorly crafted double entendres, and finishing up the call with a group "WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
VIVA LA TALK AND NEWS RADIO!
The best possible thing that could happen if commercial music based radio went the fuck away and we had nothing but free access to the full spectrum of crackpots and their calls.
I mean, now great would the advertisements be then?
"Do you like FOOTBALL?!?!?! Are you conservative econoimists ready to party with the hottest babes we got to offer!?!
Shutdown Quicken, Put Down that Wall Street Journal, Loosen That Tie, and get yer flabby buttcheeks on down to Lichstein & Andersen's CPA-Lovin' Monday Night Football Bash at Cheetahs!
Drink specials! Scotch on the rocks? One Dollar! "
man, that's be so boss.
s'wut i sed.
Also for those unfamiliar with the true nature of American politics, the American Left and the American Right are figurehead-iconic "team sport" political parties that supposedly "represent" American citizens.
In actuality they represent a few large or powerful interest groups, and their main daddy is the corporate lobbies.
GO TEAM GO TEAM GO TEAM!!
RAH RAH RAH!!
BEAT THEM DEMOCRATS!
BEAT THOSE REPUBLICANS!
But pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
American politics is roughly analogous to "professional" American wrestling.....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
I don't think so. People thought that the TV would kill Radio, yet we still have our AM and FM stations. And I believe they will be around for quite a while yet. Yes we have TV and the Internet to promote artists, but I don't really watch the much TV and don't go just browsing the internet for musicians. There are just to many out there now-a-days. I still listen to the radio from time to time, if I hear a band I like I look them up and maybe download some of their music. If it is good, I tend to go out and buy an album. And while I find most 'popular' radio stations annoying with little to distinguish one from another there are a few that are better then most (usually the local college stations). And Radio is more then just a place for music. There are the news stations and weather stations and traffic reports, and lets not forget sports as well. There are the talk shows and such as well, so while Radio might loose its edge as a medium for music, there are still quite a few uses for it to remain relevant into the future. Personally I'm waiting for the Oldies station that plays old add jingles (from the movie Demolition Man).
Sig? No thanks, I don't smoke.
Maybe they should just come out and ask who needs MSNBC anymore?
Seattle has a great commercial radio station called The Mountain. They're incredibly esoteric (Jazz, Rock, Blues, Pop, R&B). They play new and old music. It's great because I can't stand MTV but I want to hear what new songs are out there. And sometimes I just feel like listening to an old favorite. I usually end up buying new CD's after I hear a couple songs from it on the radio (sometimes they play half an album).
Ok, I know I'm starting to sound like a commercial now, so I'll shut up about the station. The point is -- music on the radio is anything but dead. It still has incredible sound quality and a pretty diverse playlist (even if it means music from more than one station). It's also helpful for people who don't feel like listening to the top 40 over and over and over.
The end result is the one forecast by Lessig in "Code": the internet becomes a glorified cable TV. This is allowed to happen because 1) the government and corporate interests have an incentive to control communication, and 2) most users of the internet are sheep who think that cable TV is pretty cool and are happy if their broadband connection gives them a better, more interactive tit to suck on (so to speak :-).
At the current time, the RIAA and MPAA are trying to kill filesharing and P2P not because they think music and movies shouldn't be online, but because they want to be the gateway for the distribution of movies and music to people via the internet.
Radio will not go away, as many posters above have shown, because it reaches the populace in an effective, cheap way. Broadband, wireless internet might eventually replace radio technology, though I doubt it. Even if it does, however, the change will be insignificant because it will be a different technological delivery of the same basic content.
There are still pockets of originality and innovation on the net, and some really interesting online radio stations. If the government makes some good decisions now, they might be able to protect the level of public access that is traditional to the net, and that was quickly stripped from radio transmissions so long ago.
The only way that this bleak picture of commercialization will be avoided is if we fight to protect the open standards and "dumb" network that connects smart network nodes. The RIAA and company have no interest in seeing such a network architecture continue.
In the UK, whichever side is in government (left or right) they pick a fight with the BBC. Which has to be a good thing!
I'd love to see someone get a hold of a supply of diamonds, and just gave them away, by the millions. Eventually the price would drop down to reflect their true, not-so-precious value. The only problem is finding someone who was already rich enough not worry about throwing away such an investment. Are you there, george soros?
While I do not listen to much broadcast radio directly, I do listen to independent radio station WOXY over the internet every day. WOXY has introduced me to more new music in the past 3 years I've been listening to it than any other single source. That is one of the advantages of a god radio station, they can introduce you to bands that you would have never heard otherwise.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
for several reasons:
It's a medium that doesn't require much to access. Heck, all you need to listen to AM is a few feet of wire, a diode, a capacitor, a really good earth ground and a high impedance speaker/earpiece.
Even a relatively cheap "real" receiver will get you plenty of coverage in the AM and lower shortwave (so-called "tropical") bands. And, in a poor country where there might only be a couple of radios per village, the radio instills a sense of community as people gather to listen to the news (and if they can barely afford radios, they certainly won't have computers or televisions).
It covers a lot of ground. Countries like China and Indonesia use it to install a sense of national identity, for instance.
It's no respecter of boundaries or ideologies. If you're a separatist/guerilla/whatever movement, it costs little to set up a radio station and get your message across to your intended audience. (Google for "Radio Sandino" for an example from the Nicaraguan revolution of about 25 years ago.) If you're a government, it's similarly easy (think "Radio Free Europe" in the cold war days.)
You can do things with radio that you can't do in visual media. Talk TV seems clunky compared to talk radio, for instance. And remember the old Stan Freberg skit where, using only sound effects, Freberg drained Lake Michigan and filled it up with hot chocolate, sprayed a few thousand gallons of whipped cream onto it, and had the Royal Canadian Air Force drop a hundred-ton cherry on the top, to the applause of several thousand cheering extras, then finished off with, "Let's see them do that on television."
The key is to stop thinking of radio as a tool of the entertainment industrial complex and recognize it as a medium that has potential to be far more than it has become in the United States.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Yes, it's free to the listener, but how does that provide the impetus to keep radio alive? It isnt up to the listener at all, it's up to the people that run it, and the people that invest in it. I hope you get AIDS.
I never listen to radio by choice (occassionally, I have to listen to radio if in a car with my wife, who always listens to radio in the car). I haven't relied on the radio to find new music for about 10 years now. How? I have a lot of CDs and I listen to a lot of CDs. Early in my music collecting career, that meant that I would know a record like the back of my hand, as I would listen to it hundreds of time. Now, I just have hundreds of different CDs to choose from.
Programming is the issue, not the medium.
Radio is the delivery mechanism but programming falls into 5 categories:
Local with syndication
ClearChannel
College
Public
XM and Sirius satellite delivered
I don't have Sirius but do have XM at home and at work and the programming is very diverse. For example last night was a sneak preview of the entire new Moody Blues album.
People will listen to "radio" if timely and high quality music is delivered in a high quality format.
TG
Would be nice to have networking equipment not operating at microwave frequencies.
i prefer to be serenaded only in person. the band follows me and only plays my requests. when there's not enough money that month, i borrow a bunch of my friends' trained monkeys.
Statistics on telecommunications technology are kept by the World Bank.
The highlight of the statistics for the US is that there are about 660 telephone lines per 1,000 people. There are about 2,100 radios per 1,000 people. That means the average person has two radios to listen to, but only 60% of the people have a telephone line. Now, if you adust from people to households, it gets a bit more optimistic. Only about half of people have Internet access. Radio is one of those "lifeline services" in telecommuncations policy buzzspeak.
Start looking at countries other than the U.S., the numbers get worse.
The opinions expressed above are those off one side of my brain, the other side and my employer may not agree.
This is the entire point of the RIAA's hatred of digital music. They could care less about a little piracy. Of course it cuts into their profit margins, but that isn't the scary part for them. The scary part is they might no longer control the distribution mechanism for emerging artists. If any artist hase the ability to produce his own digital art, then distribute it to millions of people, he or she can become a star and not need the RIAA. This cuts them out of the loop and they stand to lose control of the industry.
That's why you should support emerging arists through that mechanism. It gives you the choice to listen to whatever you want, not just the stuff on the radio. If you hear something and buy it directly from the artist, it cuts out the RIAA creeps who are leeching off a percentage. That's the power of digital media, and that is what the RIAA fears.
Who needs Corporate Radio?
I listen to 97X WOXY (they stream in broadband)and thanks to them I can hear new Guided by Voices, Ween and other stuff you don't get from crappy Clear Channel stations.
Christchurch NZ has had 4 small but still
"feelable" earthquakes in the last month. It got me thinking about emergency equipment needed and I realised that I don't personally own a battery powered radio anymore. I rely on the internet for my information. Doh.
That's one reason to have an analog radio.
I live in the UK... We have a fantastic selection of varied radio, and I was amazed at ratio between content/advertising on American radio.
My brain felt like it was going to melt after listening for 10 minutes... Even the PBS stations seem to carry commercials ("This program is brought to you by...")
You really should try tuning into some UK real audio streams.
No auto-playout radio jukebox system, or massively pervasive online sharing system is going to wipe out the demand for thoughtful, well made radio programmes, even if the means to distribute them changes in the future.
Quoth the article:
There was a time when deejays could play whatever they wanted, and the radio was the place to go to hear a variety of music and discover new artists.
What about college radio stations? The station I volunteer at bans any Top 40 music from the past 10 years on our air, and we have loads of new music to discuss and recommend.
Also there are still quite a few good college stations around like KJHK in Lawrence, KS which was recently voted by the local paper as one of the best reasons to live in Lawrence. Check the link and catch the stream!
If it wasn't broke, why the hell did you fix it!
I hardly ever ever listen to music radio anymore because I really hate being talked by someone acting like a 13 year old.
I don't buy music CDs and don't download MP3 files because only a handful of songs each year are any good in my opinion.
I also don't buy music CDs because they cost more than something with actual entertainment value --> a DVD.
He's not suggesting radio will disapear altogether. What he's talking about is the RIAA using the radio as a means to promote music, and whether or not the radio will be relevant for much longer in that sense.
Why is it that people have this bad tendency of thinking that old technologies have to die because something "better" is available? Maybe because those days most technologies don't last long and that makes people believe all technologies are not meant to last. I believe when something is done right and usful in the first place it will probably last many years and that is what is happening with radio. The fax is another example of a useful invention that might be replaced but it is still used a lot because it is so simple and reliable. I just don't like the idea of replacing something that works, simple to use and cheap, by some expensive complicated solution that uses those always broken computer protocols.
I may be wrong, in fact, I have posted this comment on slashdot without using a fax nor a typewriter but by using a not so broken computer protocol. Still, I dared not posting other than Plain Old Text characters as I don't trust any browser anymore.
Nuage
but every time i accidentally hit the npr on my radio dial (an american station,but i can still pick it up here in canada), i immediately turn away from it after listening to it for a moment. way too right wing for my tastes. then again, i don't watch Fox, or television at all...and i'd consider anyone who claims fox, cnn OR npr as 'sanity' as a loon.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
What and get rid of quality shows like Chris Moyles on Radio 1? No wonder you geeks will never get laid.
The consoloditation of radio stations by a handful of media companies is a good thing. This will eventually allow many more small companies to fill the nich void left.
This will take a few years to happen.
Once electronics companies clue into satellite radio funded by short advertisements without a DJ talking over the music.
The subscription sattelite model will fall away.
The best way around this is to promote and force the FCC to issue LPFM ( Low Power FM ) licenses with the 1,000 watt power level restored. It was taken out by Congress after the broadcasters lobbied to have it removed, citing interference claims. A new study has proven those claims to be rubbish, opening the way for LPFM stations that can really be heard in a local town.
Thousands of these stations on your FM dial ( and why not TV as well? ) would be able to put choice back into radio....and any other broadcast media so liberalized. If corporate control can be done away with, ordinary poeple would happily do the rest, and your radio would be worth listening to again.
MSNBC not only owns the news, but they own media production. which mean's if they are being critical of an old, non-digital technology, chances are they have something to replace it to sell you, and therefor there is a slant.
they Also are definitely engaged in content creation, which means you are getting misled twice as badly if you beleive this stuff without question.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Since radio is dying, the RIAA is blaming everyone for wanting cooler stuff and doing new things instead of observing their business plan unchanged since the 80's.
They argue that it is not their fault that the world has grown, technology has improved and tastes have evolved. Since it is not their fault, they therefore blame the world and are persuing legal remedies against this. To start with, they hope to gain injunctive relief against the use of all technologies developed since 1990. Further, they are buying new U.S. Federal law designed to enforce their original (and brilliant!) business model. Finally, they are buying government influence to pressure other world governments into creating similar or worse law.
Thanks everyone for bringing to the RIAA's attention that the world is changing and we don't need them any more.
Unless you want to drag really long cables with you everywhere, Internet's only chance to supplant radio is to use wireless technology to broadcast packets via...radio.
Not all radio broadcasting is intended to sell you music. Not all radio broadcasting music are trying to sell you something. I live within range of 3 great public stations. Each of them broadcasts mix of music and news that I like, so I never listen to commercial stations. I stopped that around age 14.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Let me say that radio is imperative in maintaining our status quo of our little community. It helps us to remain updated about Aunt Emma's Bake Sale, keeps the kids informed when there's a snow day and lets everyone know about HOWARD STERN'S PENIS!
I never get tired of hearing those crank calls!
Well, it's a bit unfair to tout noncommercial radio on this discussion. But Pacifica Radio is full of fresh surprising viewpoints, and my local Houston affiliate kpft.org actually plays great music. It gives you a sense of how fun dj's used to be.
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
Rather, it goes on to really ask, who needs the RIAA anymore?
No, it doesn't. If the the submitter had read the article without his anti-RIAA glasses on, he would've realized that the article just questions the relevance of radio in a world dominated by the internet and visual media.
The article specifically mentions Kelly Clarkson and Clay Aiken. Kelly received quite a bit of radio play, while Clay was seldom heard on the airwaves but still outsold Ms. Clarkson. Quote:
But the heir to her throne, runner-up but reigning king, Clay Aiken, didn't have as much luck with radio. Deejays across the country mocked him, didn't take him seriously, and often refused to play his music. Well the joke just might be on them.
Despite little radio play, Aiken's debut album went double platinum in its first week of release, out-selling Clarkson's album by a landslide. Aiken's success serves as a shining example of the power television now has over the music industry, and the arguably insignificant power radio has these days. (emphasis mine)
This article addresses radio's lessened impact on the recording industry, and not the recording industry's impact on society.
Compare to a movie. With a movie, you have to spend a lot on good sets and effects, or the setting will distract from the story. On radio, all you need is a few simple sound effects, and a few words of narration, and the listener's imagination fills in the rest...and for each listener, the scene is perfect.
Most of the great SF stories, which are hard to do well as movies, would be great as radio plays.
Now I realize that they mentioned (future) competitors iTMS and Napster, but MS is pretty cagey about the PR that they do. By validating their competitors before they get into the market, MS grows the market and gets the early entrants to make all the mistakes before they make their own foray into the market.
Some may say that the early bird gets the word, but it's an old business adage that the second mouse gets the cheese. The fact that an arm of MS is embracing on-line music as being something that obsoletes radio is a sinister indicator as to what the parent company may be planning to do.
The CB App. What's your 20?
No kidding. Cuba Gooding, Jr. sucks ass.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
...it causes my car to get a 'Net connection.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Since the FCC has seen fit to inhibit the adoption of low powered FM for us commoners, perhaps WiFi might be able to fill this void someday. Range is a problem now, but it's a big step towards cutting out the middlemen which is what radio and RIAA are all about.
Yeah, three groups that vote overwhelmingly liberal. I hope that's a troll, and that you're not actually as stupid as you seem.
Sounds a lot like WMSE the college station here in town, good music, great variety(they actually have 3 hour shows playing completly different music from the last, liek radio used to be), also you can listen online and they have their archives online. I download and burn some of the morning and afternoon shows, ussually Melissas show and Buzz's Garage(in class then) and listen to them during the blues drive or other shows i'm less enthusiastic about.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Get out of your cube and live!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Considering that the US Government gives away so much of the bandwidth in our allegedly publicly owned airwaves to corporations, I'd say the federal government is subsidizing Clear Channel stations too (including your "real talk" KFI640 AM). If you would like to learn who owns what station, become "Well Connected" and learn who controls what you hear.
Digital Citizen
WiFi users might miss radio a bit...
Internet killed the radio star, internet killed the radio star....
Radio won't be gone for I while I guess.
I cannot stand the radio. The first time in a very long time I tried listening to the radio a couple of weeks ago. There wasn't a damn thing on I wanted to hear. About the closest any staiton came was the "classic rock" station and that even sucked - Kansas sucked in 1979, Kansas still sucks today. And Boston and Foreigner and Journey. No Pink Floyd, no Yes, no Aerosmith nor Stones nor Led Zepp. It seems even the "classic" rock is not so classic any more, it's just slightly older corporate drivel.
Long story short: radio can be completely replaced by a personal MP3 player. You don't even need the fancy-schmancy hard drive models; a stack of CDs, a $5 carrying case, a home CD burner, and a $30 MP3 player from wal-mart is all it takes.
And before you say that sounds like a lot, remember that the only "extra" for most folks is the damn MP3 player.
Really. I can think of few things I miss more when I leave Canada or the bordering regions of the U.S. for an extended period.
For those of you in the U.S. within a few miles of the Canadian border, I'd suggest paying a visit to their web site (www.cbc.ca) and finding out which radio stations (CBC Radio 1 and 2) are in range.
You can thank me by writing a Canadian MP and applauding the service -- it needs all the support it can get with TV ruling all.
... and it will be a while until mobile internet has the bandwidth to support online music.
I think radio will be here for a while yet.
Beside, Radio has been on the threshhold of death since before my birth. So, I guess, news of it's demise are (still) greatly exagerated.
Ernest J.W. ter Kuile
"Video killed the radio star" (So, how bad did I screw up that lyric?)
--- This
There is one significant difference between "Real" radio and "Internet" radio.
For a radio broadcaster, the cost of adding a new listener is Zero - ( licensing issues aside ) the cost is entirely born by the listener. The listener buys a radio and tunes into the broadcaster's station.
For Internet Radio, the cost of adding a new listener is born by BOTH the broadcaster and the listener. The Broadcaster has to pay for the bandwidth to support the additional listener. Also, the listener must pay for the bandwidth to listen to the broadcast.
Internet Multicasting doesn't seem to have done much to address this asymetry yet.
As an example of this asymetry, consider the case of a natural disaster. When disaster strikes, people tend to tune into their local radio stations. The Radio Transmitter doesn't explode under the weight of the new listeners whereas an internet radio site could easily be brought to its knees by the increased network load.
-SPG
I've got a professional dac with an spdif out. If other avenues are closed to me, I can always rip my digital copy from the airwaves. I consider this to be my fallback of last resort if DRM/copy protection closes off ripping from the source media. I realise that the quality suffers, but at least I can get a digital copy without all those stupid DRM restrictions.
Now clearly local support via these systems will be much less, given the cost of entry and regionality of local news (I mean how much do people in Atlanta want to hear how the local high-school game is going in Seattle?). Although I note I did enjoy listening to rush hour london traffic reports on radio free virgin, while pulling the overnight shift in the ER in New York City.
The only problems I have found with them is a) I must sign up and pay (a la cable) and b) the total goofiness of the home reciever (do I really want to take the faceplate from my reciever in the car and plant it into my stereo, then forget it for the morning commute, like I sometimes forget my iPod?).
"Big market, Top 40 stations are still a prime place for exposure for up-and-coming artists. They just might not need that exposure as much as they would have 10 years ago."
Exactly. They just might not need that exposure. Too bad the article stopped there. Record companies are in the same boat as radio. Exposure is the only thing musicians really get out of a recording contract. They don't make money from the actual record sales, because all the expenses are taken out of the musician's share of the profits. The general public still doesn't get this.
The only reason record companies have been able to get away with their outrageous contract terms is that for a century they've had a monopoly on large scale distribution. Free distribution on the Internet has the potential to give musicians the same exposure as a record deal, without having to sign away the rights to their songs. That's when the recording industry will dry up and blow away.
Video Killed the Radio Star, oh wait no it did not.
Radio is NOT 24 hour comercials for the RIAA.
I listen to it in my car and at work (Now I sound like and Add) I could download music and play MP3s, CDs Tapes, or 8 tracks. Nothing has changed in 30 years. Radio allows you to listen to music. It is as simple as that.
Homicide bomber is redundant. Bomber is a sub-type of mass murderer (yes not all bombs kill, but that's more by luck than design). The suicide part is added as an emphasis on that individual's psychotic, single purpose nature. Not many people would die for just *the chance* to kill or maim people, but this is in fact what they do.* It's not a sympathetic ploy, it's not a fantastically clumsy attempt to recast the villain as a victim, it's to susinctly describe, in full, their uncompromising nature. That one word, "suicide", imparts a great deal of information in this context. Homicide, simply repeats information already provided. Only an idiot, or someone who minted their coin by preaching to idiots, would ever speak of "homicide bombers/bombings."
*(I'm hardly a tweed wearing liberal intellectual. I'm all for napalming those palastinians when they have their we hate israel & america parades to kick the body of some hamas lieutenant down the street. After all, why shouldn't I apply their morality to them, but with the natural advantages I was born into?)
Cute--but I hope this doesn't give anyone the idea that it's okay to mentally disengage; to think of everyone as fitting into the false dichotomy you present then feel smug about being somehow above the fray. People who come away with that impression are often the people who should be challenged to think more critically.
It is valuable to provide yourself with a deeper understanding of the power to frame a debate. I've learned this first-hand by getting involved at a low-power community radio station (WEFT 90.1 FM -- I host "Digital Citizen"). I encourage everyone to get involved in their community radio stations (or start one).
Digital Citizen
I'd love to see NPR documentaries and programs available as downloads from the iTunes music store. It's great that they have audiobooks available, but being able to load up the CD player or player for long trips with a few hours of NPR documentaries or shows would be awesome. The beauty of this is that it wouldn't deprive them of any revenue, and in fact would be a great way for them to make extra money by selling older documentaries that right now are just sitting on some shelf not being aired.
Where I live, we lost pretty much our last great "college" station to Jacor and ultimately Clear Channel about five or six years ago. Our market is totally dominated by (composed of?) CC flavors. They're all fairly lame. The only good that came of it was that CC seemed to get a few more local concerts from small-venue performers that aren't local. I've given up on the radio other than for talk radio.
...the day Howard Stern retires. I won't need my radio after that, and that's all I need it for now.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
Most of the shows you're talking about are available on the Net, or can be listened to while driving on Sirius Satalite.
I own a radio, but I haven't found the power-coord since my last move... and frankly don't feel like finding it when I can download Howard Stern in the mornings and listen to far better programming like
i.e. America Radio Network throughout the day (ieARN is available both as a free stream and on Sirius).
The media company's problems are explaned by my dau:
wake up
turn on talk radio - local political show
drive to work - flip between 3 music and 2 talk stations
work
drive home - flip between 3 music and 2 talk stations
watch 15 minutes of cable news
sleep
The fundamental problem with newspapers, radio, tv is that by the time I am at work, I have heard at least twice the 'major' news stories designated by the NYT, LA Times, etc and that I have hear the 1 or two songs I like on the radio given the short music rotation.
RADIO 's not learning from us. We need to learn from him!
my blog
Its about time someone said it.
I can still buy a radio that will fit in my shirt pocket, costs less than $10 USD, runs on self-contained power, and doesn't care about geopolitical boundaries. For a few dollars more, I can buy a model that lets me talk back.
Let me know when I can surf the web for ten bucks.
The article didn't mention the RIAA once, and yet the RIAA was front and center in the post.
NPR's funding breakdown. An excerpt:
The only direct government funding NPR receives is through competitive grants from government agencies for specific projects. Such grants are awarded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, and typically represent only 2% of total revenues.
What's the point? No stations around here are going to play bjork, or blue man group, or linda, or combustible edison - or pretty much anything that isn't fecal matter sucked from the corporate ass.
I actually thought I was getting old because there was no "new music" I liked.. then I started shopping the dance and world groups on usenet. I've discovered more great new artists the last two years using usenet than I did the entire ten years before sucking on the MTV ruled corporate teat.
I can download 3-4 CDs a night. It's not like you have to sit there and watch it all download! I get 12GB (actually more like 15-16 since yenc became popular) for ten bucks a month from sleasynews, and I have no problem using it all up... even over a "slow" modem connection.
"Rather, it goes on to really ask, who needs the RIAA anymore?"
Saying musicians don't need the RIAA anymore is like saying businesses no longer need venture capitalists. until production and promotion cost are driven to nearly zero, any artist who wants to be famous needs a record label to invest in that person. And before you start talking about how artists need to pay all this money back, they only do if they're successful.
My 2 cents
You know, not just artists and big evil corporations make their living through radio. Voiceover artists, my wife included, do a lot of work with regional and national radio ads. In addition, radio is one of the few remaining places where there are still independents playing music that you won't hear anywhere else, like college radio stations which play local and alternative artists and public radio which often plays world, jazz and classical music in between the non-incorporated newscasts.
Actually, radio will probably go away eventually, but only after there's a viable replacement, like free or subscription based internet wireless internet access covering the entire country and wireless nodes in every car.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
You screwed up your own argument. DNC plays smack in the center. Lieberman, e.g., is the DNC's boy. He's smack in the middle.
(Typing this from Cairo, Egypt, where there IS internet of course)
In the third-world / developping world, the radio is THE main means of communication. People here listen to radio all day long; this is where I get the news reports related to the place I live in (I mean, when you're in Egypt you care more about what's happening in Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Sudan, etc, than the bushfires in Los Angeles). Radio is great in that it provides localized information, as opposed to the web.
Cheap, also. I bought a 6 dollars radio that does its job perfectly well, allows me to browse in local / arabic music (go find that on Kazaa when you don't have a clue about arabic music!!).
Easy to maintain, too... Most *very* remote places (Africa, south america, asia, etc) have ONE radio + a number of batteries when the power goes out, and with only this equipment, they manage to stay in touch with the rest of the world (how the hell do you think people in, say, Guinee-Bissau managed to learn about Sept. 11?).
Internet is WAY more difficult and expensive to dispatch, operate and mantain.
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
With the possible exception of "Radio 1", the BBC produces some of the finest radio on the planet, and anyone in the world can stream it over the net. And yes, every single station is blissfully advert-free.
- they don't play music I've already heard fifteen times today
- they never broadcast from a used car dealership
All Songs Considered and Public Radio Music Source have also given me the distinct pleasure of buying obscure CDs I like that aren't published by an RIAA member.I suppose I might eventually move into satellite radio, just so long as it's Sirius; I refuse to let one red cent of mine go towards propogating Clear Channel programming.
If the RIAA was all there was to radio, then I could see (and wouldn't mind seeing) radio dying. Thankfully it isn't, and I'd like to think that the medium is slowly but surely evolving away from RIAA-provided/sponsored content and towards something better. Although it is pleasantly ironic that public radio seems to be offering a better alternative in a capitalistic market.
While I completely agree with much of the article, the RIAA is still the best way to break new artists. The record companies are the ones who invest money to hire producers, rent studios and pay for the tour. Who else would do that in place of the RIAA?
Maybe the radio stations should allow their web site visitors to vote on what gets played over the air. That would take the control away from the RIAA and would allow local bands to be heard.
Clearly the RIAA will not play the same role it has been for the last few decades. It just remains to be seen what kind of model will come along behind it.
Triple R
For music promotion, both local and internationally, this station is unmatched.
For what it is - a subscriber funded, independant radio station - Triple R maintains a relevant and professional broadcast. It's the kinda radio station you grow into, once you've opened your third eyeball to the world. When you're truly over sanitized radio (Australia has Austero - America has Clear Channel?) a strong local radio station like this is heaven sent.
I agree too that most radio is listened to in the car. Though I also find that I listen to radio a lot in the morning - while gettin' ready for work etc.
Oh yah, my sexy homepage will also replace news channels :)
I've been studying radio (both the technology and social impacts of it) for years now.
Radio will never die out. What I believe will happen (and plan on writing on in the future) is that the internet will break loose RIAA's grip on distribution, which will in turn mean that music will be distributed based on quality and not on promotion through traditional means (such as radio). As a result, radio stations will either have to adapt to the internet standard of music distribution, or sink into a hole along with the RIAA. You don't have to look to the future to see this trend evolving, it's happening right now. Stations are getting more bland and corporate, and as a result they are starting to be frowned upon by the public, as was very loudly seen with the media deregulation hearings.
Well, you know how the song goes.
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
I remember listening to a professor of mine discuss the problem with TV with his head teaching assistant, and it boiled down to this: the simultaneous images and sound of TV are so overwhelming to the senses that it is very difficult to think about what you are watching while you are viewing it. OTOH one can think critically about a show on the radio. This is why talk radio is so popular.
Additionally it is nice to listen to something new; this is impossible if you are creating your own tracklists. Listing to someone else's tracklists can lead to interesting new music.
Finally there are many situations where video is not feasible. The car is a great example; other sitatuations may involve a lack of space or funds for a video screen.
However radio is not without problems. There are many times when we cannot get the content we want due to the physics of broadcasting. Only a very limited number of channels are available, and if we are in the wrong place we cannot tune in our favorites. And the costs and licensing required to broadcast mean that only a select few get on the air.
The solution is to keep our favorite radio shows, but change the delivery mechanism. It would work like the internet; all our favorite shows would be sites with streaming content that we tune in over a wireless network. Of course we would need to find bandwidth to provide nearly everyone with a hi-fi channel, but that is just a matter of time. Then almost anyone could broadcast content, there would be no geographical barriers to reception and we could have virtually unlimited channels.
Just not the major news web sites.
Blar.
Anyone in the music business will say that radio beats anything else by overwhelming margins when it comes to breaking new artists.
It's likely to stay that way until the _actual_ listeners find a way to have a greater influence on what is played over the air.
You know a radio station (wFMU) is good when it outlives the College that it started out on. It also goes to show how much support is out there for the non-prepackaged radio stations.
Their trying to get rid of one of the last bastions of free speech. Long live KPFK FM.
trust me, you'll like it.
+&x
Last week, the senior vice president of the RIAA came to my college for a debate on copywrite and p2p. When asked how the RIAA can continue to justify the existence of the record labels with iTunes et al, his response was that we would have no new popular music without the promotion offered by the labels. I call BS. On the contrary, instead of the labels actively pushing the latest crap from Britney Spears through radio promotion and advertising, truly good music would spread through word-of-mouth. Every single day the RIAA and its cohorts continue to exist is another day our ears are spoonfed by what some executive at one of the Big 5 labels believes the public can be manipulated to purchase thorugh relentless marketing. Unfortunatley for the labels, p2p makes it easy for people to figure out that album x is crap before they have a chance to buy, hence the rapid erosion of their dated business model and the RIAA's desperate fight for survival.
Im not sure if this says anything.
Without making a concious effort to do so, the last 5 albums that I have purchased, i have never heard on the radio. All but on are on indie labels, and were release recently..
So, I am not weening myself because I disagree with the RIAA. The RIAA is weening me because most of the members are only putting out crap.
Sort of related...did anyone see Michael Jackson on the "Radio Music Awards" (whatever the hell that is) last night? He thanked Clearchannel SEVERAL times. I guess he wants his next album to sell better than the last one. Step 1 in having commercial music success appears to be "Kiss Clearchannel's Ass".
For some time I'd given up listening to mainstream music on FM stations. I can't stand listening to the same songs over and over when they aren't playing five or six ads in a row or some DJ isn't rambling on about something or other. I'd listen to NPR and some college stations in the area, but that was about it.
Then, several weeks ago, I decided to hook up my TV antenna to my stereo at home so that I could pick up one of the college stations I listen to in the car and after doing so I carefully scanned the band to see if there were any stations I could pick up with the TV antenna that I couldn't get in the truck. Sure enough, I found 104.1 KMFR, and it wasn't all that weak either. Turns out, it was a new FM station that first went on the air in 2002! I was suprised to find it because I figured that all of the available spectrum space in the San Antonio metro area was already claimed but what the guy who set up KMFR did was get a license to serve a rural community about 40 miles south of San Antonio (Pearsall) and then built a 100,000 watt station that "just happens" to reach San Antonio. (All of the station's ads are for San Antonio businesses.)
What's really interesting about KMFR is that it's a high power FM station fed by a PC (or dedicated PC-like device) that randomly picks songs (in KMFR's case, classic rock) to play along with commercials and station promos. The format is two or three songs, one 15 or 30 second spot, 5 second station promo (My favorite: "KMFR, a marginally profitable enterprise of Radio Tuna, Limited) and then another two or three songs, etc, etc.
There's no DJ or studio. About 1/3 of the commercials, all of which are done by the same announcer without background music or other special effects, are aimed at potential advertisers and provide the station's phone number. One time I called that number and got the owner's personal answering machine. I looked in the phonebook for KMFR but there's no listing so apparently KMFR is run by one guy out of his house! (To quote some of the ads: .. "We've recently added a high dollar answering machine so you can now call us anytime!" .. "Call and talk to the big man himself!" .. "How can KMFR make any money with so few ads? The answer is: Low overhead!")
While I find it refreshing to find a commercial station that plays a very wide playlist (they even play John Lennon's "Imagine"!) with very little interruption, I'm also concerned that it has the same lack of public service capabilities as the remotely controlled Clear Channel stations.
Error:
WHY would I need to spend $1000's on a computer to tune into music when I can buy a $5 radio that never needs rebooting????? I own a calculator for a similar reason. Who are these people kidding? Internet is nice, fishing on a beach with a radio in the background is nicer.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Not soon enough. They've been dicking artists and the general public at the same time for decades. Quite a trick. There are few organizations that deserve to end up on the scrap heap of history as much as they do. Right next to SCO, M$, Enron and the Bush administration.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
It's really depressing to see the grandparent modded up, when it deserves to be flamebait, overrated (very overrated, how often to we get the stupid liberal/conservative slant?). Do you have mod points to bring it down?
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
I actually did that, once... and the equipment was worth significantly more than my 10 year old Dodge Spirit.
I used some 1/4" plastic sheet and a heat gun to build a shelf. I mounted an inverter under the dash and rigged a remote power switch that I ran to an available spot above the radio. Then I ran a patch cord from the audio out on the laptop to the aux in on my radio, and added a GPS antenna just for fun. If I were to do it again, I'd also have to hook it up to the car's diagnostic port.
Of course, my laptop screen was invisible in even moderate sunlight from the driver's seat, and extremely dangerous to operate while driving. It was kind of neat to have, though.
Heute die Welt, morgen das Sonnensystem!
Check out For example, according to the report (pp 13) 67 percent of Fox News listeners think there is an Al-Qauda Iraq link. only 16% of NPR-PBS listeners/watchers had the same wrong idea. If you think that there was such a link you may care to kno that the President of the United States said there was no evidence of any such link. All right, mod me down as not conservative now.
Yes, probably true - for the record companies. But the throughput!! Something like five bands per year it would seem.
I find a lot of people are finding music from other sources. I think more telling is how the staying power is of the bands being pushed - it may SEEM like they are "successful" but what happens when the marketing machine sacks off? Not many bands survive that, and fewer people care.
Radio may make a few bands very successful for a short time. But the internet is making musicianship a viable career for people who probably would not find it so otherwise.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A lot of what i listen for on the radio is not music at all, when there are shows on i listen to them. Such as in the morning, Bob and Tom and what not. If it's at night usually Drake and Zeke. The rest of the time i usually listen to the NPR (National Public Radio) I used to not like talk that much but no as i have matured it seems better, they keep much more updated on news than other stations and classical music is a nice tuch. I don't think the radio will completly die out to the internet but it will jsut have to find new ways of distributing itself as the RIAA has to find new ways to keep their songs safe.
The original poster was correct in how people on the main 2 sides of US politics view these 2 news sources.
. html
That you don't accept that means you are too blinded by your politics.
Even the NPR ombudsman acknowledges that many people view NPR as "liberal";
http://www.npr.org/yourturn/ombudsman/2003/031015
It may have illustrated the "cultural wars" that seem to be flaring in the country. Unfortunately, the interview only served to confirm the belief, held by some, in NPR's liberal media bias.
Now, I like NPR. I love their on location type reporting, when you can hear the background noises of the places they're reporting on (cars, the sounds of a restaurant, etc). All things considered is one of my favorite shows on the radio.
But I can see why conservatives would view NPR to have a liberal slant, just like I can see how liberals see Fox News as this right wing mounstroucity. The people that don't see that, usually live in one of the ends of this silly and artifical political spectrum and not where most of us live, in between.
- sigs are for wimps.
how many of you listen to the radio on the way to school/work? yeah, just about everyone's got car CD players, & some can even play mp3's in their cars. but despite all of that, EVERYONE will still turn on their radios to listen to some radio-shows, "phone taps," "war of the roses," or newly released music (how else will we know which songs to download? :-) when we start to see some portable broadband, then we can start thinking about ditching radio.... currently, internet over cell phones is just much to slow to even touch the same kind of usefulness that radio has....
Commercial radio has blown it. Instead of being a resource to initiate youth into various types of unreputable music it has become an icon as a commercial feed-bag. Even college radio is in decline (or declined, in San Diego it is just another corporately sponsored PBS station).
And public radio isn't free radio. Its well done, expensive radio that relies on corporate sponsorship (and viewers like you). It fills its niche, but it is very much like its other corporate brothers and sisters (and it doesn't play music!). Its also a member of the broadcaster lobbying group NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) which makes it a not so friendly neighbor in my book and is reason enough that I won't be sending in my dollar.
Quack, quack.
Until congress bans radios because they violate some stupid new law that everybody will hate, but allow it to pass anyway.
Hypocrisy is the 8th deadly sin.
FOCK YOO!
...as a communications medium for those situations when there is no direct wire alternative and/or people don't want predefined content and/or want access to news and the likes. I know that Europe has the RDS system which can interupt your car player with traffic bulletins, but who's going to run a purely traffic news content channel? I personally prefer to use the car radio during the rush hour with my CDs as backup for when the radio content is not to my taste, that way I can concentrate on the matter at hand - driving safely.
Apart from the obvious situations of car, cycling, walking and etc. where there is no viable direct connection possible, what about when the power goes down or there is no/inadequate infrastructure - people here in the Aussie Bush have enough trouble just getting reliable land-lines, never mind dial-up and broadband; and as for Africa/Asia/etc... 'nuf sed!
Perhaps radio will become a less popular medium for music promotion but, until the whole world is reliably wired, it will continue to use music in addition to providing other content, if only to fill the gaps between the news, traffic and ad. breaks.
Go permanent? In your dreams and my worst nightmares.
I just got XM Satellite Radio. It's great, has genre specific channels so that I'm never blasted with music I dislike. I guess there are enough 1980s fans to warrant a niche chanel like "80s on XM 8". XM limits commercials to 6 minutes an hour and some channels have none.
XM has made radio fun again. It has eliminated DJs who talk too much, too many commercials, and "Hits of the 70,80,90, and Today" where the station attempts to be the "universal" choice and just becomes "universally" annoying.
Nothing wrong with radio, just make sure you have the right radio..
Who Needs Radio?
If this isn't a "hit piece", then why is this even a question?
WHY is this poorly researched, and written article even referenced on slash dot?
It could only be asked by someone who has little to no technical experience, and who clearly didn't do their homework.
Radio continues, and will continue to have a positive affect on our fast paced society for a long time to come, as not everyone enjoys as much leisure time as Ms. Brown must have, to be making such cavalier, and self centric statements like, "With a virtual jukebox of music at your fingertips why would anyone tune in to their local radio station...".
I guess that Ms Brown's world mustn't include any old people, or chronically sick people who don't have the energy, or they don't know about, and/or can't afford the latest technology to "get" music so easily as she seems to think.
And what about stay at home housewives (remember them?) who don't have the time to be choosing music when there's lots of work to be done.
Or how about any person who actually works for a living, and can't be taking their employer's time to be picking and choosing their tunes for their work shift. They have to "make do" with radio and many of them actually LIKE the programming offered (I know this will come as a BIG surprise to Carolyn, but it's true).
To even ask if "radio [is] even relevant anymore" shows extreme tunnel vision, and a lack of even basic research before writing her "commentary".
Carolyn Brown plays loose and fast with her assumptions regarding radio's worth in "today's" world, and it's clear that she has no idea of how valuable radio still is to many segments of our society.
As a person directly involved in "small town" radio, I conclude that Carolyn Brown's article is a tRoLL to be ignored.
Other than to sue little old ladies and young children.
And always remember... Beer Goooooood! Napster Baaaad!
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
the only "liberal" news i get hear is on the radio. otherwise i have to read it. ugh.
"To stop the terrorists."
"The definition of leftist in the United States has changed so dramatically in the past 2-3 decades"
No, it hasn't. NPR is leftist because sides with the left-wing on a wide variety of issues. It has nothing to do with "pro-corporate mumbo jumbo": the only place that is present on the left or right is in ads, and both NPR and right-wing radio have advertisements.
"Just because NPR doesn't put shows on where people whine all the time about poor people being lazy doesn't make it leftist.
Since right-wing radio does not air this either, does this not make it rightist? Hard to follow your illogic.
"maybe listen to some non-American opinions."
Incorrect opinions are still incorrect. Or maybe you are right. After all, there are some truly worthwhile opinions that have come from Europe in fairly recent history. But this does not mean that Il Duce and Lenin are anything other than monters.
Projects such as iRate radio will, eventually, ensure that the RIAA has much less power over people listening habits.
To quote the iRate website:
So there you have it. Use iRate and cut the RIAA out of the loop.
"NPR tends to be in favor of more government"
That is true. It is official government news/media, and as such suckles on the public teat to survive. Of course they favor bigger and more wasteful government, because more government waste means more money likely to come their way.
To understand this, you have to know about the problems of bureacracies that exist only to enrich themselves. Unlike almost all other bureacracies, official government radio has a big loud mouth with which to preach bigger and more wasteful government.
I swear I'll get one song and then it's onto commercials. Scanning through stations, every one that is playing mainstream, pop, rock, alt, hiphop, rap, classic rock has commercials on.
Probably all clear channel stations.
Just really annoying.
-- taking over the world, we are.
By "IP reaching motor vehicles" I hope you don't mean an RFC1149 carrier pooping on your BMW automobile.
and leave my radio alone
She don't even trust those new fandangled transisty thing-a-ma-jigs.(Any idea how hard it is to find good quality vacuum tubes?)
...
What a stupid idiotic thing to put forward
I even listen to the radio when driving, they have the weather, news, gossip, all read out for my convenience. Now how nice and old fashioned is that?
I didn't watch the show last night. Save for good ol' Tom Petty, I didn't give a rat's ass about anyone who was on it. Petty is a dying breed: an artist with talent and integrety that will sustain him for the rest of his life. But that wasn't necessarily the venue to appreciate the man.
I mean, c'mon... Petty's been slugging it out for 30 years now, and some of his best work has come out just over the last decade. His massive boxed set "Replay" (six CDs) proved that Tom's outtakes are better than 95% of anything you might hear on the radio nowadays.
Fast-forward to 2033. Will anyone remember Avril Lavigne? Justin Timberlake? Beyonce? Hell, that's not even a real name. None of these "artists" will stand the test of time. NONE of them.
"Who needs the radio anymore?" Well, I do, for one. My livelihood depends on it (I'm a freelance commercial producer). But with all due respect to Ms. Brown, the fact that radio competes for eardrums with the internet (old news) and MTV (even older news) misses the point.
The question shouldn't be "who needs the radio anymore." This is too simplistic. It should be "who needs the product that radio delivers anymore." That's the problem the industry needs to address. There's a reason cume (uh, that's cumulative listeners for you civilians) has dropped every year since 1985, and I believe it's because there's little compelling reason to listen anymore.
Except, of course, for the traffic reports.
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
I listen--almost religiously--to The CKUA Radio Network, here in sunny Alberta. This is listener-supported radio, and is so good that you wonder why the other stations bother staying on the air. (I know the answer, of course: Money.)
Rock, classical, country, folk, world, new-age, ambient, techno, they play it all. There's a late-night show that's a tribute to the Grateful Dead. They had a 24 part series chronicling the history of Folkways Records. AND, they're available on the internet. That doesn't take away from their province-wide AM and FM transmitters, so that you can hear them for roughly 16 hours of straight driving.
Stations like this will be broadcasting for a long time, and will exist in the same 'radio-like' format on the internet if broadcast radio ever dies. The internet isn't going to kill off the format, even if the medium were to eventually die.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
radio is bunk as long as fcc has a say. radio free burlington was shut down for having a different political view (socialist). they dropped the hammer on them for exercising free speech. but hey, since when has speech been free? ][ in other news, a woman died today. time for morning calisthenics.
|plastic....or gasoline?|
Actually, here on Long Island my first indication that something was amiss on the morning of September 11, 2001 was that my radio station wasn't operating. It broadcast from the top of the World Trade Center.
I got on the Sirius Satellite Radio bandwagon about two months ago, and haven't listened to an mp3, cd, or normal radio broadcast since. The stream format is great, just not the side effects of corporate radio like tons of commercials, limited playlists, and annoying disk jockeys.
Anyone who subjected themselves to sitting through the MTV awards would realise this.
Chris Rock should stick to doing voiceovers for hamsters.
The awards were pretty much for the same group of 'artists' for the entire night. With all the great music in the world, how would Justin Timberlake and his posse of bum chums make it if the system were accurate and independant?
It was a bloody disgrace. Now the Australian Aria awards, that was a little more fun.
Thanks to the magic of technology, you can avoid the RIAA easily.
Yeah, right.
I used to think that show was creative and compelling. But after listening for a long time I stopped because it wasn't creative nor compelling. It was the same stuff over and over and over again. Depressing story week after week for the most part.
My blog: http://jkratz.dyndns.org/~jason/blog/
Actually, I hadn't thought of the GPS angle. I wonder if it's illegal to have a "Driver Navigation Unit" in view of the driver. I know that you're not allowed (or maybe it's frowned upon) to have a DVD or video screen playing for the driver, but I would love to have a full color screen for a GPS as well (I've got a palm vx with the magellan GPS add on, but while it's useful, b/w and old maps suck)...
I just bought a Grand Marquis (I'm not that old, but the car is comfy!) and have plenty of room to start putting something together.... Would love it even better if I could mount the equipment in the trunk, outta sight, and just have a fold up LCD or even a detachable panel for it up front. I hate thieves.
Karnal
He makes MSNBC liberal for sure- oh wait, they fired him even though he had their highest rated show. "Liberals" sure act strangely these days.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
I don't listen to the radio at all but it looks like I'm the odd man out on this one. And here I thought it was already basically dead. I have listened to NPR in the past and consider it to be the exception but other than that, radio is crap.
I guess all the pirated music doesn't find it's way into people's cars. Hmm... strange that...
This is the wrong crowd to ask. Years ago, a sociology professor of mine once asked the class out of context, "What are the most read magazines?" Answers came in like:
Harpers!
The New Yorker!
National Geographic!
Clearly, seeing that those were insane, I cleverly suggested Reader's Digest or TV Guide. But I couldn't even think low enough: National Inquirer -- at the time.
Point is: A LOT of people will be listening to the radio for a LONG time. They just may not be prime demographic. So is the context ears or dollars?
[BTW: When Bush was sending Colin around with pictures of graineries to drum up war fever, public radio did an hour on "Socrates, the Soldierin' Years." I will always wonder how Monty Python would have presented that and I will never again think of U.S. public radio as anything but, "The Same Propaganda -- with the slant we know _YOU_ enjoy!" In truth, public radio can be _more_ fun to deconstruct than FOX because it isn't always so obvious.]
should the day come when "music" is about "music" instead of "fashion" or "style", radio and recorded music sales will take off again.
It seems you must look long and hard to find musical music instead of "agressive background noise filler" on pop stations these days. White noise is just as effective.
Too many one trick ponies out there with record contracts and no supervision of the A&R departments (who only seem to pick up acts that can cuss....maybe this is where the guys went that used to promote "professional wrestling" as a sport, leaving the true artists to write jingles for commericals and such (certainly a money maker, but you won't be the next "Beatles" doing this either....)
Anytime a good (or what I consider good) radio station comes into town, Clear Channel buys them out & turns them into a Country station.
Bad response from Clear Channel in my opinion. From their perspective they are taking away competition from their other major rock stations (which is true) but they don't modify any of their rock stations to fit what they took away.
Bottom line is I listen less & less radio because anything good gets bought out & everything left sucks (Minus NPR).
THANKS FCC. You ruined radio! (by giving the radio execs enough rope to hang themselves, but the public are the ones really paying the price).
Why should Television not be lumped in with radio? Do pictures make the argument for any more valid?
-- TT
TT
I being a Michigander only had the radio to figure out "what in the bejesus" was going during the blackout that hit. Before I decided to listen to the radio all I knew was that I went through 3 cities and NOTHING was working. Radio was there to tell me what in the heck was happening. So I still like the radio and will DEFEND IT TO THE END!
What's special about music? Software, novels, poetry, textbooks, movies, TV shows...and music - are all just bits. Why does one set of bits need to be promoted and distributed one way - and others another? It makes no sense.
You could maybe make the case that movies are special because they are HUGE files and eat bandwidth - but it seems crazy that the others are all treated so differently.
The entire mechanism of production, distribution, marketting and copyrighting of bits needs a complete rework...nothing we are doing these days makes any sense.
www.sjbaker.org
It is not just the elderly that could use radio.
For instance, one can listen to the radio while performing a other tasks, but I cannot do that while watching television or surfing the internet (using current and ubiquitous technology).
The only reason I don't listen to radio anymore, is the lack of material I like. I have been denied those funny shortwave bands since I moved to the US, otherwise, I would still be listening to the Radio even though there are quite a wide variety of channels on local television itself.
(If I were into music stations, I would have been listening too, but I only like to listen to music stations while travelling in a car or something like that.)
Sorry, I can't help but do it.. so many submitters obviously invest thought in the spelling and grammar of their submission (well, except Taco :P), but can never remember that "Internet" is a proper noun! If we can't get this right, who will?
First, I thought this was about that new Cuba Gooding Jr. Movie... but anyways, to stay somewhat off topic, but yet VERY NERDY ANYWAYS
... again, in the 89.? range.
:(
... yet I get this. Can someone please `splain this to me.
Let us discuss something. As we were driving home from South Dakota a few weeks ago, we were in a place in Nebraska north of North Platte. NOTHING out there. We would put the radio on search on the FM band and get NOTHING. NOT A SINGLE FM STATION CAME IN. When we would click through, we still got NOTHING. On the lowest part of the FM we could kinda make out a classical station
Then we switched over to AM and it was FLOODED with stations... but must sucked. Way to static to listen to. However, one station came in loud and clear. I stopped to listen because he was talking about weather and I wanted to know if we would drive into a storm. Problem: He was broadcasting from FORT WORTH TEXAS! Acording to streets and trips, we are looking at ~ 650 miles as the crow files! How the FUCK does that happen?
We also picked up a station from CINCINATI! That is ~ 880 miles away as the crow flies! Again, WTF?
Ive never gotten signals that strong. I should have written down their freq, but alas I forgot
I do remember as a kid laying in bed with the radio in my window, headphones on, slowly turning the nob on the AM stations and listening to faint signals. One station I could get pretty regularly was in Kansas City. When we moved I could faintly hear a station in Chicago... but it turned out to be a re-broadcast out of Lincoln. I also managed to pick up a station out of Oklahoma City.
If I am listening to a local AM station and lightning strikes or I go under a bridge, it cuts out
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
During the blackout on August 14, 2003, the only news I could get was via the radio in my car and the battery powered portable in my house. Knowing what had happened and the magnitude of the problem made leaving work early an easier decision that day. Also knowing that it was not due to terrorists helped calm some folks.
The radio will always have its place. It may evolve into a more interactive medium, but I don't think it will ever disappear. People thought the radio would go away when TVs started showing up in every living room, but its still here.
-- Does anybody know where the 'any' key is on the keyboard?
On cold, clear nights, I sometimes can get the station down here in the Ozarks when driving around.
But seriously, as I drive around I switch between three stations in Springfield: 91.1 KSMU (NPR), Newstalk 560AM (local/regional?) and 104.1/1260AM another newstalk station. I don't think I will be downloading MP3's or streaming movies to my 2003 Chevy Malibu anytime soon...
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
... how much longer will it be before the radio, and the RIAA, will be an obsolete means to promote artists?
As long as it takes for cell phones to provide unlimited minutes. Really. When we have cheap cell phones capable of reliably transferring around 100-150 Kbps of bandwidth (fast enough to deliver near CD quality MP3/OGG data) without any limit in minutes, radio will be RIP.
Why listen to the radio (limited formats, crappy song selections) when you can listen to exactly whatever you like, anywhere?
Funny enough, they're both radio. It's just that one is personal, one is not.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Well, for the record, this happened in Finland. In the place I was born there was some guy who had gotten tired of his life etc. etc. so he took some dynamite, went out and detonated himself next to a river.
People still listen to radio. FM radio mainly. Not just for music, but for news and shows. For instance I like to listen to daily a show, what's why I'm going to buy a FM capable mp3 player.
Sometimes not being able to see is a benefit depending on what you're doing. It's definitely good for suspense. Still, it's a shame that the radio shows have to go back to the 50's or 60's or whatever to find this kind of content. As far as I know, no one has made anything similar since. Personally don't care for "compelling and creative" though. That works better on TV where you can see it.
If you're a radio producer, how about starting up something like that suspense stuff again? Doesn't necessarily have to be old-fashioned (read: feel free to use modern higher-quality sound effects, and read ads from modern day products). Can't be that hard or expensive to pay a bunch of out of work actors to read some scripts. For that matter, can't be too hard to pay an out of work journalist or something to write their scripts. For that matter, post an ad in a newspaper or University for submissions. Some people might do it just for fame or credit.
I'll bet other radio stations would pay for your content if you do. They would if they were smart. Dunno if radio has syndication or what. But even just cold-calling would probably create something similar really fast. Not a lot of original stuff out there these days. Just a bunch of a**holes playing practical jokes, phoning random people and talking about crap nobody cares about.
Please somebody do it. And if you do, please give a call to the radio stations in Vancouver, Canada and offer them some.
I agree, who needs the RIAA, indeed?
My friend's band, Flashbulb Diary has been spreading solely through internet (and word of mouth, of course), and they have a decent following. They're mostly making money from playing shows, as they made their entire CD downloadable.
Radio is bigger and easyer than you may imagine. Its not about spins of music, thats just the conglomorate yell. Radio is as simple or as complex as the broadcaster.
Money + Wattage/Company = end user
Many shows are syndicated and reach a large "fanbase" (read LOTS-O-Money). However, many shows are simple and low wattage (think collage radio). However "bad" these local (sometimes illegal) broadcasts are they are the revolution of radio.
If a vet in a foxhole can make a radio out of some wire, razor blade, and a few nails then it will still be around. Not to play the hippest junk but to shout an open message of "WE ARE STILL HERE!!"
This holds true even with Sirus and XFM... Satelite radio is a revolution but do keep in mind who is behind it all. Big Money. K.I.S.S. and you will prevail
I feel the author of this story is looking at radio totally from a US / Western perspective.
:-) !!!]
Did the author stop to think for just one minute of all the non-western countries around the world where some people still don't even know what a computer is let alone even dream of being able to afford one? (Tip: please please travel more...!!)
Have you ever heard of Telex which was around before fax machines? Fax machines and Telex are dead in world, right? Wrong!, Both Telex machines and Fax machines are still very much alive elsewhere in the world with many companies offering gateways to convert between "modern" systems and Telex/Fax !!!
If you work for a international company then you will know how important it is to still have access to this out of date technology (in western terms) to be able to communicate with non-western countries who haven't quite reached the same level of infrastructure. [In fact I'm please to see that as a whole the US has finally almost caught up with Europe in relation to mobile (radio) phones...
Radio has been around for 100 years. It's pretty amazing that TV, the Internet, etc. haven't killed it. It's still enjoyed by hundreds of millions of people here in the US every day.
Exactly... only radio is enjoyed by BILLIONS of people around the world in additional to the US. What is more radio is very much alive with new developments still coming into existance such as Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) (long range *digital* AM/MW!)
Radio will be around for at least another 100 years in the western world and will continue to exist for many more outside the western world, regardless of if people think it is dead in the west.
The FM radio is the most reliable way to get news out in the developping world - don't forget this _little_ fact.
Cheers
Need an ISP in South Africa?
Talk radio is irrelevant to this conversation. Did you read the article?
The end to the recording industry means all but the end to music. Musicians won't write/play music merely for the knowledge that people will condemn their morals and way of life. Which is exactly how people are justifying STEALING their music.
VENI, VIDI, VICI, DIXI
you fucken nerds should try getting away from behind your PC some time. Not everyone sites behind their pc 24/7
Really, even for /., this is *too* stupid. You take your little pet idea, be it Linux/P2P/Tivo etc. etc., then proclaim Windows/radio/TV is over. /. readers are a tiny niche of the world's population - most people have never hears of P2P, RIAA, DMCA, HDTV and so on, and probably never will. The world doesn't really change so much, especially not peoples habits.
I simply *cannot be bothered* to choose every song I want to listen to, or every TV show I want to watch. I want to sit down, turn on the radio, and have someone else pick the music for me. Some of it I will like, some I won't, some I won't have heard before - I've discovered many of my favourite bands through radio.
And then there's local sports events, news, and some excellent journalism that have no other outlet, and all available whether I'm in my house, in my car, in my garden, on a bus or at work, all while I'm doing something else.
Go to a factory - they'll have the radio on. They won't have gentoo athlon boxen playing fair-use oggs, creaming their jeans about how the whole chain is free as in speech. They have more important things to worry about.
Radios are cheap, easily available, easy to use, and understood by all. They ain't going anywhere.
I work in radio! :)
IMNSHO, Triple J (the J's) is easily the best radio station in Australia. Being a part of the ABC, it's government funded. So the only 'ads' are promos for their own stuff and are nowhere near as frequent as commercial stations anyway. Their presenters are unique and entertaining, not your usual annoying radio dickheads. (btw, Wil Andersons 'bio' is always a hoot). Their schedule has enough variety to keep most people happy, with lots of Aussie and independant artists. The only time I hear trash from the likes of Britney Spears, Christina Scraguleara, or any of the unlimited boy/girl groups nowadays is on commercial TV.
More importantly, Unearthed discovers fresh new bands each year and gives them air play and (I think) a record deal. The annual Triple J Hottest 100 "competition" gives everyone a chance to vote for their favourite songs of the year. The Hottest 100 CD's are great because the music "lasts longer" than most other artificial (or biased) compilations. Honestly, who wants to listen to Britneys' old "I can sing and dance and I'm blonde!" garbage two years from now? The oldest copy of the Hottest 100 I have is from 1997 (#5) and the music on that is still playable. Not great or new, but still certainly playable.
Well, I hope I've provided enough links there to keep everyone happy. You can catch it online in RealAudio or WMA streaming formats.
Perhaps visually impaired people.
But not as a cash cow.
From a previous discussion, Pollux gives a good account when radio stations are used for non-RIAA emergency situation. The Minot event is particularly chilling.
For me, I'm all for keeping not only local radio stations, but keeping radio stations local. I heard about a tornado warning over the radio coming in my direction ten minutes from me (and I was five minutes away from home). Weather, traffic, breaking news, events that happen while you're NOT in front of a TV -- that's where radio's strong point remains.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Ever try to watch TV in your car, or at work..?
Aside from the practical mechanics, there is a lot of difference between the mediums..
This whole question came from the view point of a TV based company, so of course they think radio is dying.
Just as TVers thought Newspapers would die, when in reality they have a larger customer base then before... go figure.
Anyone that thinks radio is not needed is a fool. TV isn't much more useful then the occasional laugh from a sitcom.. its not worth much more then that.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
>Remember, radio transmits only voice
This got me thinking...
I guess this discussion so far applies mainly to public radio... is it useful to expand it to considering the relevance of HAM radio? SSTV and ATV, modes for the transmission of pictures and videos over radio, have been going on for a long time...
I'm not a HAM myself (yet) but I have loads of respect for what I see as a sort of intriguing proto-internet. One main difference, besides medium, of course, being the requirement of a license.
Not being a HAM I can only *assume* that the content of those airwaves is somehow significantly different (for the better) than the giant tube of crap known as mainstream radio.
The ARRL handbook cites emergency assistance as an argument for the continued relevance of HAM radio. I can't personally attest to or discredit this idea. I'm curious if anyone knows any role HAM radio may have played in this capacity during Sept. 11, since it was brought up already.
If you want a real radio station that plays music that I gaurantee 90% of you have never heard, tune in WREK, Georgia Tech's radio station here (they also have a 7-day archive). The stuff it plays is so out there that, at least for me, I *have* to listen to it because it is so different. This is what all radio stations should aspire to, since it fulfills I think what the real purpose of radio stations should be these days... exposing people to new music (and I mean *new*). It demonstrates just how much music is out there that no one gets to hear.
Instead of the RIAA going after music uploaders, they should be going after Clear Channel and Infinity. They play the same 4 songs over and over and don't promote new artists. How are you supposed to comsume new music if the radio isn't playing it? The only way for you to hear new artists (or old artists with new albums) is to download them on the internet. I've always said that if I ever won the lottery I'd buy a radio station and you wouldn't hear the same song twice in a day.
The question should be "Who needs ClearChannel?" Do they really think playing the same cycle of songs three times a day every day is what people want? Or has radio degraded into broadcast musak for office saps?
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
I enjoy listening to the radio sometimes when I don't feel like listening to my cds at a certain time.. it'll usually be the oldies station cuz its fun to listen to those when you're high... and some of the talk radio shows like Mancow and Don & Mike are pretty funny.. those would be my only reasons for actually KEEPING radio..
and about the RIAA, it would be so fuckin easy to demolish them.. the Indie music scene has grown so much over the past 10 years, and the interest has a lot to do with that.. I mean its next to FREE to put your band online, and promote the hell out of it.. anybody could do it. and millions of people have access to your music or information about your band..
the only thing artists would be missing out on, if the RIAA was dead and gone, would be the financial backings for these bands.. bands are investments for the record labels.. and i will admit thats it definitely hard to accomplish anything as a band, or should I say "business" without a little help with a decent amount of cash, to get you moving..
if you hate the record industry for the common reasons, like we all do, but see my reasonings for why we might need them, then there's only one way to resolve the issue.. start a new online record label, that lets people download the music for free.. free band promotion.. kinda like mp3.com.. if the site was popular enough, they could easily make enough money from advertising, to fund the bands of their choice, and fund themselves as well..
- Hi I'm Linus Torvalds and I pronounce Linux, Lih-nix..
Bravo to you! WEFT was a __great__ station to listen to (when I could get it in in Central IL during my college years--about 15 years ago). I also liked WORT in Madison, WI (which I can sometimes get in in Northern IL)!
I'm glad to see that they are still on the air!!!!!!!!!!!!!
From the article...
"Music and image are completely inseparable, and with the advent of reality TV and the Internet, music consumers aren't about to relinquish power to a solitary deejay and squirm at the fickle whims of their radio reception."
The big problem here is that there never is a solitary DJ behind the mike deciding what is going to be played. Everything is decided remotely, at the network level, and the playlists are all computer generated. The only thing the DJ does anymore is to spout his typically childish drivel into the microphone.
So this begs the question...where does the music come from? If the playlists are generated on a remote computer somewhere according to demographics and marketing, who decides what new up-and-coming bands are worth listening to? Will all music end up being prefab garbage like the BackSync Boys or those cardboard cutout idiots featured on American Idol?
It seems to me that, in order for new music to get airplay, somehwere there has to be local coverage of whatever local music scene. With everything being so tightly controlled at the network level by some nameless faceless marketing drone who decides everything using a spreadsheet, a good deal of what is offered on the radio these days, where does exposure for new music happen? If nobody supports local music, there will be no new music at all, except for the prefab garbage.
You sound surprised that this post was written with the omnipresent US tunnel vision. The fact that these people pretend to be so open-minded and yet can't possibly see past the tip of their noses is Slashdot Hypocrisy #28856. You may want to write that down.
On 9/11 I watched live TV coverage from the BBC via the Internet, across a transatlantic link even. Worked fine.
Maybe suckholes like Faux News and CNN were down, but actual news sites were working if you were prepared to look for them.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Whaaaaaaat?? Isn't this the pop bullshit mentality that mass media wants you to believe that has led to the degradation of music in the first place? That just feeds back into the 'beautiful people" running show business, where talent takes a back seat to image. There is still such thing as good music, and radio is as much a necessity for music as it is for talk, etc.
We all take for granted that we can burn CDs, listen to our digital cable music channels, watch MTV, blah blah. Not everyone can afford that kind of stuff.
And on the radio, you can still count on a few surprise discoveries of new artists (if you listen to the right station). The threshold for entry into radio (read cost) is still much lower than it is for television, so it will always be the more "adventurous" medium for exploring new material.
You can listen to, ahem, certain college radio stations online. Yes, this is a shameless plug, but I will say that if you can't find anything you like on WMBC, there are plenty of other stations that broadcast. But we use Linux and our custom software is open source :)
And yes, our lo-fi stream (32k mono) generally works fine with dialup.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
0. the usa is not the world. clearchannel might have sterilized the US radio scape to a large degree, and rightwing hate-speech radio syndication did the rest, but there is still low power fm, and all the potential to combine internet and radio in new ways. there is radio pacifica, and college radio
stations, and NPR and WRN, there is indymedia and soulseek, give it another 2 years and radio will have a bigger comeback than vinyl had, when they introduced the CD.
1. if you want to listen to good stuff you might have to go to europe:
check out london with more than 68 pirates on FM, reaching more people within that city than all internet radio stations arround the world.
in the netherlands you'll here electronic music in prime time. etc. in france and germany you can listen to nightlong live DJ sets on public radio.
2. check the technique, when we speak about radio we speak about broadcasting, when we speak about internet radio, it's unicasting. doesn't scale well, before multicasting/IPv6 is fully implemented on a backbone level.
3. downloading is not radio. and filesharing is anyhow illegal under the DMCA. who in the industry wants the darknet replacing radio promotion? having a digital jukebox at home, or remotely is also not exactly radio, it's a replication of the heavy rotation of clearchannel or sirius radio. this is genre based muzak for braindeads. acoustic prozac. the redundancy of clearchannel you can easily have replicated in the online shopping malls of microsoft, dell, apple, napster 2.0, musicmatch.
4. the internet doesn't make people have a better taste when they just continue to do what they did before: prefering bad american HOT AC top 100 charts. that's why the USA missed on mostly all the larger pop music movements in the last decade, thank's to it's media concentration. the internet didn't change a thing. the industry is not suffering copying, they are suffering from their own redundancy promoted through radio and MTV.
if the music industry would seriously invest into talents, both, radio and internet music would profit from it.
there are plenty of people who's rational, critical, and creative thinking offer greatness , specifically on radio... and i really don't know anyone who still watches cnn or any of the other 'trusted' media sources. when you don't have 9/10 radio station's owned by one company, the idea that npr is way to far to the right doesn't sound that outrageous. here, there is some 3 entities that compete for our fm radio, plus we have a community radio station here. plus there's always rantradio. i bet most of the people who listen to wbai, cjtr,rantradio, and a host of other radio networks out there also have grown past the 'seeing cnn as worth watching' stage.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
I agree with that. Radio will never be dead. Though it may be broadcast through different mediums as time passes, it will still (probobly) be CALLED radio, the same way dialing a phone is still called dialing (like "dial 911" or something) even though most people don't have dial phones.
No, I'm a BBC man myself.
I do listen to an undisputably independent radio station, Boulder Free Radio, which operates (illegally, of course) without an FCC license.