Commentary: Is radio dead?
SINGAPORE: The decease of radio has been heralded for close to a hundred years.
It was first predicted with the invention of boob tube in the 1920s and its widespread adoption into homes after Globe War 2.
30 years agone, the culprit was the VCD. Today, people say it'southward live-streaming channels and apps like Spotify.
So it's apt to talk over how dead radio is today, on World Radio Mean solar day, where many others around the world are celebrating radio's contributions to the advancement of humankind.
I did just that by request my students at NTU's Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information this question.
"Do you remember radio is dead?" They replied, "not in the car".
Then at that place you accept it, radio lives on in our cars.
It is curious and certainly intriguing for an industry that has laid the foundations for moving picture, tv set, videos, and some newer technologies like mp3 players, podcasts and Skype, to be live but bars to the car.
Is this true?
The information shows otherwise. According to a 2022 Nielsen report, which surveys audience responses from around the world, 92 per cent of Americans mind to the radio each week. In 2015, over 93 per cent of Malaysians listened to their radio.
And in Singapore, there have been significant rises in listenership in 2017.
That is indeed a lot of cars. Or is it?
And then maybe radio is not dead, only misunderstood.
NEW FORMATS, NEW CHANNELS
The confusion over this perception stems from people talking about different parts of the same subject as if they are all ane.
Recently, a report by Diverseness that considered traditional radio'southward grim future was followed past an online report by Digital Music News. It ran the headline "Radio is dead in ten years" and went on to say that "the medium at present brings in less acquirement than streaming platforms".
Sometimes caution is necessary when economic science is confused with popularity and where, in this case, the redistribution of audio from a terrestrial network to the cyberspace is wrongly interpreted as the demise of a whole industry.
What it does necessitate, is the demand for clarity.
The term "radio" encompasses many factors, ranging from the presentation format of content, the type of manual (digital or analogue), and the distribution of sound (whether terrestrial, cable or internet streaming), to how listeners consume the content, such as through a radio set, personal estimator or a smartphone.
Nielsen reported that threescore per cent of what the survey termed, American millennial heavy radio listeners, are more probable to heed to online radio.
The findings don't signal a drop in radio listening but a change in listening habits and the style content is being distributed.
In other words, it is like taking a coin out of your left pocket and putting it into your right pocket.
Radio is at present distributed on sites like iTunes, Pandora and Spotify; in podcasts, online athenaeum and radio streams; and in new hybrid forms like YouTube, audio slideshows, and digital soundscapes. Ironically, "sound has now become a screen medium", claims Professor Michele Hilmes at the University of Wisconsin.
If anything, information technology underlines the main issue that terrestrial distribution is being threatened, non radio.
There will always be segments of the population who will want ease of use. A traditional radio gear up only requires turning it on or off and selecting a station.
Possibly this is the reason why new radio stations are still being launched in Singapore, every bit recent equally terminal month.
Conversely, depending on your digital device, there are a few more than steps needed before you can listen to your favourite plan, similar opening the device and finding the application, all bold that the WiFi connection or a data stream through a service provider is robust, and that the interface of the application is user-friendly.
RADIO STILL FILLS THE VOID
If radio'due south audience numbers are increasing so what is it about radio content that makes it special?
I find that radio is unique, considering of its ability to fill up the infinite, the void of time passing, equally nosotros take on other tasks, like driving or sitting on a omnibus or perhaps studying at home.
Mayhap, radio'southward pervasive attitude makes it the perfect friend, ever in that location keeping united states informed, educated, entertained, if non ultimately involved.
We listen to our favourite songs and symphonies, the news of the day in quick, easy-to-understand sound "tweets", and nosotros larn what road to avert considering of traffic delays.
It is simple, piece of cake and somehow, we don't need to filter information.
What makes radio engaging is the event and emotional ability that this medium offers. For instance, the many places it could accept you lot, or take you dorsum to. Or having the experience of hearing a piece of music bring tears to your eyes.
Radio can besides act as your own virtual space, where pictures are created with your imagination in your mind'southward middle, when the voice of a Syrian refugee talking emotionally near experiencing personal loss later on her family unit was brutally murdered in one nighttime of terror reaches out to you lot.
This is the purity of idea that radio offers without the clutter of vision. It is also why radio is the chosen medium for discussion programmes that engages readers in discussing complex conceptual ideas – in this aspect, information technology is far more effective than any other medium.
Radio forces our minds to focus on what is beingness said and not on the stream of visual interference which surrounds our daily lives.
RADIO WILL LIVE ON
And then is radio expressionless? Information technology was not long ago that we heard of similar well-worn tropes and society survived. The internet was the decease of television, television was the end of picture palace so forth.
The idea that radio is dead is more broadly a discussion between digital online services and the legacy of radio broadcast transmissions.
In New Zealand, radio expert Rufus McEwan in his study of digital platforms concluded that "i initiative seeks to depart from the conventions of radio while the other seeks to champion them".
The fact that these two responses emerge at the aforementioned time suggests that maybe a change is necessary when it comes to producing news and entertainment.
Already we are privileged to have podcasts and loftier-fidelity digital sound which we listen to through our speakers or headphones. We have the choice to heed to what we want, when we want and where nosotros desire.
Only radio will still be radio. Information technology may be served to united states in another way and possibly on some other plate, but radio volition continue to be alive and well.
And even so living on in the car.
Dr Kym Campbell is a senior lecturer at the Wee Kim Wee School of Advice and Data. His interests are in broadcast production, journalism and mobile media.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/commentary-radio-dead-214521
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