Wednesday, November 21, 2012

The Future Of Terrestrial Radio


We live in a time where we constantly see new technology being introduced to the public. One of the industries which has been greatly affected by new technologies is the radio industry.

Big Changes

Over the last twenty years, the radio industry has experienced much change.  In 1994, the radio industry saw its first online radio station. This is something that most of us take for granted today. Almost every radio station now has the ability to be listened to online. You can go to the station’s website and listen to it worldwide, providing a much larger audience. There also many apps such as Tunein and iHeart Radio with directories of radio stations that can be heard online.

The Good and the Bad

There are many good and bad results of the change of the radio industry.  One of the big issues of controversy is new technology such as Pandora. Many people have different opinions about how Pandora is affecting the radio industry. Pandora is an Internet only online music source. You can listen to pre-set stations or select a song or artist and Pandora will create a radio station based on that song.

The ability to remotely work and to automate everything also has a big effect on terrestrial radio. Now, on air personalities can remotely record their voice, saying different things, and the station can put it in where they want.  Radio stations can also automate everything that plays, making everything cleaner and giving less room for error.

The Experts

The experts I am going to be interviewing are John Harper and Don Stevens.  Don Stevens is the Manager of Station Operations at WVOX-AM and WVIP-FM in New York.  His job is to make sure that the stations run smoothly. John Harper is a radio consultant and does voiceover work, on air news/talk broadcasting, along with many other things.