The Transmission Transition

From the beginning of time, man kind has yearned to communicate with others. From cave drawings and paintings with animal blood, to virtual worlds such as Second Life, society has continued to enhance its capability to communicate with each other. One of the older forms of technology that we still use today is radio broadcasting. Public radio is technically defined as a transmission of audio waves to reach a wide audience and this was a huge stepping stone in what is considered as mass media. The creation of the radio is generally attributed to Guglielmo Marconi. He first started doing research in the 1890’s and then in the 1900’s Canadian researcher Reginald A. Fessenden became the first person to send audio waves. He successfully transmitted over a distance of about 1.6 kilometers, and on Christmas Eve 1906 Fessenden became the first person to make a public radio broadcast.

Fessenden’s radio broadcast is nothing like what radio is used for today. With each decade after the first radio broadcast the distance that which the audio waves can travel became larger and larger. By 1920 there were many different types of radio broadcasts that were commercialized. For the most part, they were used for either music or talk shows. In 1922 the radio was used for education as professors from Tufts College taught “wireless college” through audio waves. Some schools still use this method to teach classes today.

The Federal Radio Committee monitored the airwaves that used the wireless college, but not long after its creation the Federal Communications Committee started to patrol instead. Radio also started to broadcast audio of popular television shows in the mid 1930’s. This created the Golden Age of radio and it was broadcasted on what we know as AM stations, or amplitude modulator. FM stations, or frequency modulator, started competing with the AM stations and eventually took over as it was the birthplace for rock in the 60’s.

Radio today is used much like it was used fifty years ago. FM and AM stations are still very much popular, with FM stations typically playing popular music with a live DJ and AM stations playing talk shows or less popular music. Currently, “radio is the third most powerful medium in the United States, reaching 54 percent of the country’s population daily”.

Marshall McLuhan once said that “a medium, is an extension of the body.” Radio can also be considered one of these external organs. Everyone has a choice to decide what type of music they listen to, or what person they want to hear talk, Music is defined as “vocal or instrumental sounds combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.” If every person has the ability to express themselves through an external source, McLuhan’s theory can be proven true. No matter what form of radio you use you can express your emotions, or listen to someone who can impact your life. Radio is a medium that extends the ability for humans to express themselves.

Although radio is very popular in the USA today, there are also about 46 percent of people that don’t listen to the radio daily. So, why do so many people not want to listen to the radio anymore? Brandon Gaille, the host of one of the most downloaded marketing podcasts in the world, The Blog Millionaire podcast, says the primary disadvantage of the radio is that the information contained within the station is hardly rememberable. With so many stations playing the same top 40 music, people can’t distinguish which station they like better. They spend a lot of time switching through stations and even turn off the radio when they don’t want to hear a song don’t want to listen to the host, or they don’t want to hear the same advertisement they heard five minutes ago.

People want to stream their own music and Spotify received 200 million hits to their website last year . The radio to some is seen as an annoying static machine, but for others it’s a way of life. A lot of people spend their morning commute listening to their favorite local radio station. Radio broadcasting has many benefits. It is used to relay television programs and it is used to cover a mass media as well as a selective reach of audiences, it also helps in advertising to the users. Finally, its cost is less compared to other services that work the same way.

What is next for the radio? Ten years from now what are we going to be talking about? Satellite and internet radio stations like Sirius XM and Pandora are becoming more popular every year. The unlimited range coverage that satellite radio brings to the radio can not be matched by the local radio broadcasters and thus more people are using it on their commutes. A contributor for Forbes, Brad Moon, has spoken about why internet radio is dominating the homes, and not the road. “If you use an internet radio for two hours per day, that uses roughly 3.2 GB of data per month. Consider, for instance, that many people opt for AT&T‘s, 300 MB or 3 GB data plans for cost purposes.” People do not have the mobile data to use internet radio during daily commute, however “two out of every three new cars sold in the U.S. today are equipped with satellite radio”.

Not only are FM and AM stations being targeted by satellite and internet radio, “Last October, the Federal Communications Commission approved digital broadcasting for U.S. radio stations using a system from a company named iBiquity. Within the next few years, AM and FM radio stations across the country will begin broadcasting a digital signal alongside their current analog signals on the same frequency”.

Krakow went on to add that it will take ten years for all 13,000 FM and AM stations to be changed into DRM or digital radio mondial. DRM has a lot of benefits, it will make every station sound HD, AM radio will now sound a lot cleaner and be able to sound like FM stations. Radio manufacturers like Sony, Sanegan, Bosch, JVC and Telefunken are already liking the DRM system and Kenwood and Harmon-Kardon are working on U.S. radios for the iBiquity standard. Krakow believes, “within five to 10 years the price of digital radios should be low enough for people in remote areas and third-world countries, where reliance on shortwave is particularly strong, to afford new receivers.”

Radio offers service to everyone no matter who you are, where you come from, or social class. It is the medium to offer enjoyment to anyone who can’t afford it as well as those who are wealthy. It is the reason it is so popular still. The accessibility of this medium is of the highest order and that is because of each station lending the services to all those who want to consume their data.

In ten years from now we can be talking about radio and how it went digital, we can be talking about radio and how it could have stayed the course and battled through internet and satellite radio, either way the most likely occasion that we will talk about is that radio broadcasting as we now it today will have a huge change in its structure. In February of 2018, sports talk radio was down 7.18 % and online music streamers has exceeded 6 million users daily, according to Forbes.com. Founder of Media Life Magazine, Gene Ely, believes that “all these are forms of audio. The only difference really is how you access them—and it’s a minor difference. It is all one medium, growing and evolving, and reaching ever- larger groups of consumers.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ely is correct, audio is just audio, and radio will still be around in ten years because some people just don’t care enough about audio. The people who want to listen to their own music and have the mobile data to do that will stream their audio, those who want crystal clear radio and can afford satellites monthly packages will use that medium, and everyone else that doesn’t do either of those two will be listening to the traditional radio. There is a reason the majority of the population still listens to traditional radio even though satellite and streaming software’s have been around since the early 2000’s.