How Long Does Radio Have Left?

[kevtronics]

The audio content industry makes a huge mistake by identifying itself with an obsolete, century old distribution technology.

But yet an obsolete term for radio that started to fall out of favor 100 years ago -- "wireless" -- is all the rage these days.

 

[davideduardo]

The audio content industry makes a huge mistake by identifying itself with an obsolete, century old distribution technology. Nothing new there. The broadcasting establishment, rooted in AM, did their best to kill FM some 85 years ago.

Not true. Some of the first FM licensees were AM stations which thought, back in the late 1940's, that FM provided a way to own a second station.

If anyone or any entity tried to quash or slow down FM, it was Sarnoff and RCA; they were afraid that consumers buying FM sets would not purchase more expensive and profitable TV sets where RCA was placing a major bet.

The product is not the means of distribution.

I already said that. News distribution goes back to the town crier and the minstrel. And the newspaper. And radio and then TV and now the web. Tell us something we don't know.

Any anything that does not adapt will perish, as Charles Darwin first taught us.

Darwin did not teach us that. Some organisms have not adapted but have survived because the are able to endure all kinds of environmental and nutritional conditions. Others have evolved and still others have been created.

If you define "radio" as audio entertainment and information, then no it isn't going away. If you define it as broadcast wireless transmission, then it is.

And in the total power loss in the Iberian Peninsula and SW France yesterday, broadcast radio was the only method of communication. The first to go was the web..

I do not understand why people in broadcasting are so fascinated by towers and transmitters. People in publishing don't care about presses and typesetters.

Poor comparison. Newspapers, for several hundred years, produced a physical product that was manufactured on presses, distributed on trucks and delivered to homes and newsstands. People bought and paid for the "processed paper" because it contained interesting information broadly called "news".

Consumers had to buy the physical newspaper or share it with someone who had purchased it.

Listeners to AM and FM radio don't pay the station for a product.

 

[davideduardo]

Unfortunately for the agencies, this is exactly what consumers *do not want.* In terms of music formats, what the Internet is proving is that individual tastes do not necessarily fall into the strict formats defined by broadcasters; worse yet, consumers, when being handed over the controls for musical choice, are choosing not to hear music they *don't like.*

Yet well curated national radio networks, accompanied by often a fabulous web presence, are working very well in much of the rest of the world. Whether we compare France or Chile or the Philippines, a very good product that is free, does not require work to assemble, and which is universally available, is very attractive.

More importantly from a political and democratic perspective, people are proving by their Internet choices that they are unwilling to listen to anybody who disagrees with their viewpoints on the world, whatever that viewpoint might be.

That generally has applied to politics, labor unions and even school PTA meetings for decades if not centuries.

 

[vchimpanzee]

It wasn't a lawsuit.

Okay, Wikipedia says "filed a comment". Somewhere I heard it was a lawsuit. But it was a complaint that there was a monopoly.

Fast forward ten years to the merger of Sirius and XM, and Primosphere made the ludicrous proposal to the FCC that they be allowed to use the SiriusXM infrastructure to run their competing service. They used as an argument against the merger that the two companies' never made available a receiver usable on both services.

FCC turned them down, saying they had no standing since they were a losing bidder in the original auction.

No source, but Wikipedia does suggest Primosphere had the right to lease channels Sirius and XM weren't using.

There was a lawsuit, but it wasn't brought by Primosphere ... a class action suit was filed by subscribers a year after the merger, claiming it had created an "abusive monopoly" that raised prices "above competitive levels". The settlement of that in 2020 resulted in over 400,000 subscribers receiving either part of a $25 million settlement fund (if they were no longer subscribers) or three free months of SiriusXM's highest service tier.

Never heard about that one.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Nobody is stopping another company from launching satellites.

Money.

 

[Don CT]

Money.

Still doesn’t mean there is a monopoly if someone else can do it.

 

[tall_guy1]

People don’t love Facebook. They use it because that’s where everyone else is.

Facebook was hip like 15 years ago. A lot of younger people don't use it like they did.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Okay, Wikipedia says "filed a comment".

You trust Wikipedia to be accurate? 😱

 

[Jean Luc]

Not true. Some of the first FM licensees were AM stations which thought, back in the late 1940's, that FM provided a way to own a second station.

If anyone or any entity tried to quash or slow down FM, it was Sarnoff and RCA; they were afraid that consumers buying FM sets would not purchase more expensive and profitable TV sets where RCA was placing a major bet.

I already said that. News distribution goes back to the town crier and the minstrel. And the newspaper. And radio and then TV and now the web. Tell us something we don't know.

Darwin did not teach us that. Some organisms have not adapted but have survived because the are able to endure all kinds of environmental and nutritional conditions. Others have evolved and still others have been created.

And in the total power loss in the Iberian Peninsula and SW France yesterday, broadcast radio was the only method of communication. The first to go was the web..

Poor comparison. Newspapers, for several hundred years, produced a physical product that was manufactured on presses, distributed on trucks and delivered to homes and newsstands. People bought and paid for the "processed paper" because it contained interesting information broadly called "news".

Consumers had to buy the physical newspaper or share it with someone who had purchased it.

Listeners to AM and FM radio don't pay the station for a product.

Sarnoff was not alone. And their attempt to kill FM started in the late 30s. They even pressured the FCC to change the frequencies of the FM to render existing FM receivers obsolete. Sarnoff and his lawyers eventually drove FM's inventor to suicide.

And this whole thread shows that too many people don't distinguish between broadcast radio (a means of distribution) and audio content (the product). The point is if radio stations go out of business and towers turn to rust (or are appropriated by cell phone carriers) the demand for audio will continue.

I don't see any newspaper people publishing calendars with pictures of presses.

Terrestrial audio broadcasting will not survive as something to use in an emergency. Besides, if radio towers can survive the emergency, so can cell phone towers. Besides what does terrestrial radio tell anyone in an emergency that anyone with half a brain can't see for themselves: There's a storm (look out the window). The lights are out (sitting in the dark should be a clue). But newsies get off on that and they can feel that for once everybody doesn't hate them.

 

[ted chittenden]

Terrestrial audio broadcasting will not survive as something to use in an emergency. Besides, if radio towers can survive the emergency, so can cell phone towers. Besides what does terrestrial radio tell anyone in an emergency that anyone with half a brain can't see for themselves: There's a storm (look out the window). The lights are out (sitting in the dark should be a clue). But newsies get off on that and they can feel that for once everybody doesn't hate them.

What terrestial audio broadcasters can (and sometimes do) provide is a warning about extreme weather conditions before they can be observed outside your window and, in some cases, before it is too late to do anything about those conditions.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Terrestrial audio broadcasting will not survive as something to use in an emergency. Besides, if radio towers can survive the emergency, so can cell phone towers. Besides what does terrestrial radio tell anyone in an emergency that anyone with half a brain can't see for themselves: There's a storm (look out the window). The lights are out (sitting in the dark should be a clue). But newsies get off on that and they can feel that for once everybody doesn't hate them.

What terrestial audio broadcasters can (and sometimes do) provide is a warning about extreme weather conditions before they can be observed outside your window and, in some cases, before it is too late to do anything about those conditions.

Not to mention that Ted can't look out the window, even though I know he has much more than "half a brain". Nor can he tell when the lights are out unless someone tells him.

 

[TheBigA]

Besides what does terrestrial radio tell anyone in an emergency that anyone with half a brain can't see for themselves: There's a storm (look out the window). The lights are out (sitting in the dark should be a clue). But newsies get off on that and they can feel that for once everybody doesn't hate them.

The purpose of EAS is to give the local emergency crews access to all forms of communications at the same time in a unified way. So what is supposed to happen is they take control of radio and TV, as well as cable and cell phones. They tell you what is expected to happen, and how to prepare. Where to go in case of a tornado, for example. It's authoritative information, not just the local DJ or newsman. The thing they can't do is turn on a radio or TV that's off or non-existent. That's a different problem.

 

[davideduardo]

You trust Wikipedia to be accurate? 😱

He WRITES for Wikipedia.

 

[davideduardo]

Sarnoff was not alone. And their attempt to kill FM started in the late 30s. They even pressured the FCC to change the frequencies of the FM to render existing FM receivers obsolete.

The band change was pushed by Sarnoff, but in the end actually favored by FM stations themselves as the lower band had severe interference from literally being "high end of the short wave band".

Sarnoff and his lawyers eventually drove FM's inventor to suicide.

We know that story; it was due to all the efforts to block Sarnoff's patents from becoming the standard.

And this whole thread shows that too many people don't distinguish between broadcast radio (a means of distribution) and audio content (the product). The point is if radio stations go out of business and towers turn to rust (or are appropriated by cell phone carriers) the demand for audio will continue.

Two different subjects. Radio is the most robust in the case of emergencies because it is simple and basic.

The only case to be made for the most robust system happens to be Elon Musk's satellite based phone and data system. But it is expensive, and radio is free.

I don't see any newspaper people publishing calendars with pictures of presses.

And I don't see any radio stations with calendars with pictures of towers or websites with calendars with pictures of servers. What is your point? Or are you just generating ground clutter?

Terrestrial audio broadcasting will not survive as something to use in an emergency. Besides, if radio towers can survive the emergency, so can cell phone towers.

Most cellphone towers are provisioned with just temporary backup battery power, if even that. Very few are in locations that allows them to have actual generators with fuel tanks. Most radio stations of any significance have a generator at their transmitter site and many have such facilities at the studio location; those that don't have backup in their studios (center city high-rise office towers, for example) are able to originate from the transmitter.

One of the reasons why KTNQ/KLVE/KSKQ/KRCD in LA moved to Glendale in 2001 was the ability to have our own generator at the studio office building.

The first things to go in a disaster is cellular service, cable TV and landlines. The last thing standing is OTA radio.

Besides what does terrestrial radio tell anyone in an emergency that anyone with half a brain can't see for themselves: There's a storm (look out the window). The lights are out (sitting in the dark should be a clue). But newsies get off on that and they can feel that for once everybody doesn't hate them.

Terrestrial radio is the base for the national emergency alert system which also has state and local applications. Through it, emergency notifications and important information can be transmitted to people with battery operated radios even in the worst of situations.

I think you are just being a technical nihilist!

 

[K.M. Richards]

He WRITES for Wikipedia.

So do I, on occasion. Just updated the page for 1260 a bit ago.

 

[Don CT]

What terrestial audio broadcasters can (and sometimes do) provide is a warning about extreme weather conditions before they can be observed outside your window and, in some cases, before it is too late to do anything about those conditions.

My phone can do the same thing with alerts. If I’m not near a radio the alerts are useless to me anyways.

 

[radio11]

The batteries in my radio will last longer than the battery in your phone.

 

[Don CT]

The batteries in my radio will last longer than the battery in your phone.

If we lose local DJs who will relay the information 24/7. A national feed will not help a local disaster.

 

[TheBigA]

If we lose local DJs who will relay the information 24/7. A national feed will not help a local disaster.

See post 152. It's not the job of local DJs to relay disaster information. It's the job of local emergency officials.

 

[Don CT]

See post 152. It's not the job of local DJs to relay disaster information. It's the job of local emergency officials.

So emergency officials are going to override a local radio station to give 24/7 information to people? Or will they just break in once a day. If I am listening to the radio I want real time information, I doubt government officials will be doing that.

When we had week long blackouts due to weather the local AM stations were on wall to wall giving out information. Will we still get that with no local DJ's?