Jeff, over at the excellent Herculodge blog, shares this link to an interesting article in Slate about the future of AM/FM radio in the age of podcasts.
Click here to view the full article and check out Jeff’s excerpts on the Herculodge.
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While I’m no worried about a zombie apocalypse anytime soon, I think the recent Sony hacking shows that we’ve really put all of our eggs in the one Internet basket.
AM radio, for what is seen by some as a bygone technology, will penetrate the walls, circle the earth and fly through the air to your little battery-powered receiver when the bytes in the cable have stopped.
You might not need it now. But it will shine like the sun when we need it…and we will.
He shared nothing shattering in the piece. AM/FM radio remains marketable because it is cheap to receive by the masses. Also, local programming like talk-radio, or oldies stations, or even FM 80-90s pop hits catering to people at work keep analog radio somewhat relevant.
Even today, most people I know can’t listen to digital stuff in their vehicle, or at work.
They run older vehicles, can’t afford satellite radio, or their companies block streaming media due save bandwidth on their networks.
Still, given a choice, many will choose net-based “radio”. In my circle of friends age 30-55 , I find nearly all of them don’t listen to “air wave” radio at home : only in their cars, or work , or where they are forced to.
I stopped listening to shortwave radio about 2 years ago because most of the quality content I enjoyed has gone. What’s left is often religious stuff and foreign language government propaganda. In the 70s-90s all I listened to was SW. Now I stream favorite audio over the Internet or play my CDs (ripped onto my hard drive). A recent power failure lasting 8 hours found us listening to radio again, but the nanosecond the lights came on, it was back to our Internet radio stations on the next heartbeat.
Charging for bandwidth more affects those streaming HD movies and audio/video shows. Radio or audio streams consumes much less bandwidth and some of the internet radio stations I listen to give you a higher or lower bandwidth choice.
True if the zombie apocalypse comes, radio might again become relevant if the semiconductors still work. Got my tube radio set in back up for that eventuality.
I dunno. I don’t think he grasped the whole picture. HD radio is not mentioned at all either pro or con which is strange for an article contemplating the future of am/fm. Though I think HD is has largely failed, digital radio has gained some traction among NPR stations who can now split off beloved but less lucrative formats onto subchannels without losing that particular audience.