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I listen to radio every day. It is almost essential in keeping up to date with breaking news that might happen between a long 2 hour journey on any typical day, or a 5 minute journey to the gas station. While it is still unclear as to whether the radio in my car starts telling me the news and sometimes sings music to me because of the importance of such things, or simply because it can, it is definitely a good source of knowledge and a good way to learn about independent media. Here I will talk a little bit about how the radio was treated around the year 2000, when everyone ran to the internet to watch live streaming feeds of debates if they weren’t close to a computer [or if you were chatting with someone online], and when people tuned into television more than ever before. I will also point out where radio stands today compared to its counterparts ; print publications such as newspapers and books, television, and the newcomer on the block called internet.

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1999 can be marked in history as the first year to be known as the death of radio. While we may not have noticed it consciously, there was more television coverage, more online coverage, and more print coverage on different events that was publicly known than on the radio at that time. While stations such as National Public Radio did keep on going and doing their splendid job, many people tried using other forms of media to learn about different news, including the 2000 Presidential elections. I myself watched almost all the videos of the debates and live coverage online [Windows Media Player buffered streams very well at that time, along with RealPlayer]. This was very interesting, as both the internet and the television then offered everything that the normal [and typical] radio [and the radio stations] offered, and much more. We could not only hear, but also see things “live” on TV and interact “dynamically” online.

Around the end of the 1999, sites such as Live365 came around to declare [unofficially] the end of the normal radio stations, and people were delighted. Thousands of people went ahead and setup their own little radio stations on such sites during the year 2000, streaming their own opinions, news, and most of the time, personal music collections. I myself wasted countless number of hours listening to the 80’s and other music around those times on “Live 365″ and actually enjoyed it. Everywhere people thought that everything the radio had to offer was inferior compared to internet radio. People started advertising more on the internet, and the advertising revenue that was already being divided between print, television and radio advertisement had a new person who wanted, and got, its part of the share; the internet. We all focused on cd players compared to radio stations, and listening to a radio station in a car was considered “cheap”, probably because you couldn’t afford a cd player for your car at that time. It was unofficially, and unconsciously, the end of radio.

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However, interestingly enough, something “kept happening.” I quote those words because they mean a lot of things. While we saw an increase in the number of online advertisements and more people going online to check for news, we found out that more people “listened to” radio than watch television or go online. When I quote the words “listened to”, I am emphasizing on the fact that people listened to them, and did not turn to them deliberately, for news. Radio was always available at a convenient place; within the kitchen or in the car. People loved this accessible feature of the radio, and quite unknowingly. They turned on the radio while driving down to the grocery store. They turned on the radio when the cd player they had didn’t have any new CDs to play. They turned on the radio while going to work, as in the morning you want to hear news instead of music, specially if you are stuck in traffic and the melodic tunes feel like punches pounding you and telling you “you’re late for work again.”

No matter what, we did listen to radio one way or the other. We heard it while walking at Albertsons, or while at the beach, or we heard it while having a hair cut. We heard it while we waited for our turn at the post office [which was music, instead of news, by the way], we heard it while cooking at a restaurant or at home, and we heard it while we had a car that did not have a cd player. One way or the other, radio stayed, and we kept listening to it. All the cars in the U.S. still come with a radio player. It’s so common, it’s not even a standard. It’s now considered part of the car, much like the engine or the tires. How would you feel if you just bought a brand new car and it didn’t have a radio?

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Furthermore, advertisers slowly found out that while television advertising did result in instant phone calls from customers who had just watched an ad and were excited to place order for products, and while online advertisement did result in online orders and more customer loyalty and more people going to the target web sites [which serves the purpose of much of the online advertising, to drive traffic that is], radio advertising still reached out to the largest number of consumers than both the television and online advertising could reach, combined. Consider this: according to Radio Advertising Bureau, in 1994 the radio medium reached about 202,351,000 people, about 96% of the country’s population, every week. Imagine that: over 200 million people every single week of the year, on average. That means every radio station, every radio channel, and every radio program out there reaching out to about 96% of the U.S. population. Advertising has the highest potential here, as advertising can be plugged into any category, if suitable, such as music stations, news stations, sports stations, and even speciality stations such as weather stations that focus only on the weather along the coasts in certain areas. In 2004, this number rose to over 228 million listeners a week. That is more than what the Internet can provide for many years to come, as even online most people just check their emails and log off, let alone stay online for sometime regularly and every week.

We have to keep another thing in mind also. While reading a newspaper and watching television, and even surfing the web, you have continuous opportunities to click on another web site, look at a book instead of watching a movie, or put down the newspaper and turn on the television. Listening to a radio at office or mostly in a car is different; you cannot access any of the other 3 media paths [print, television and online], and you are focused on only 2 things; driving and listening. You can’t do much, unless you want to call someone or look at a girl/guy in the car next to you or cut-off someone. But basically, you are limited to one channel for listening and remembering, and that is the radio. You can change stations, but you are still tuned into the radio. That is very powerful, and that is why radio is so successful.

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Nowadays, radio stations are becoming more sophisticated. Instead of just offering music, stations such as 104 KBIG [formerly known as "KBIG 104"] and Star 987 now offer hourly traffic reports in the region [for the two listed stations, this would be Orange County and the Los Angeles area], daily news at different times of the day, daily ticket giveaways to different events [not limited to the entertainment industry alone]. Also, these and other stations are now relying more and more on their web sites to offer prizes, secret passwords of the day to unlock tickets to events and concerts, and other things. On top of that, these stations add a little flavor of their own special talent on different days. “104 KBIG” offers a “Psychic Medium” every night these days, where you can have a special “reading” to reach out a loved one [or someone you don't love, though that hasn't been tried yet, and I would love to hear such a reading] who has passed away. It sounds kind of spooky to many people who hear it for the first time, or even “fishy”, but if you hear about the popularity of the program from people who have actually participated and want to participate, it’s really amazing to know how people are on a waiting list to get on that show. Similarly, “Star 987″ offers a relationship counseling session at nights, all live on radio.

The web sites for the stations are the place where people can register to be on such shows, thus mixing the internet with a traditional form of media. These two “specializations”, in case of these two radio stations, each with its own unique program, tend to attract more listeners and build a loyal listener base. Even more interesting is that these stations now offer more music and fewer commercials, meaning advertisers are willing to pay more for a commercial that airs at fewer frequencies than before. Results must be good so far for many radio stations and the businesses also, I assume.

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So there you have it; the brief history of how the radio was destined to die in the peak years of the Internet [before the dot com bubble had burst completely], and how it turned out to have adapted to the changes and challenges faced by online, print and television advertisement [competition] and blended in different things to get good results, and continue to be in operation and is alive and better than ever. Radio is here to stay for the time being, and may even stay longer than many people expect it to be. Not only are people still outgoing creatures and thus not giving up all travel in favor of sitting in front of a computer, they are tuning to radio stations instead of always relying on their cd players.

I drive between 30-100 miles everyday depending on what I have to do. Even I prefer to listen to the radio news or new music on radio instead of listening to a music cd every day, since listening to the same thing repeatedly is boring, and changing cd’s repeatedly is a hassle since it’s hard to drive and choose cd’s at the same time and push the eject button and then wonder which cd to play next, and since I don’t have a multiple cd player [changer] in my car, it must label me as a “cheap” according to my own article that I just wrote above, which isn’t true since radio does provide live breaking news on NPR which is hard to burn in advance on a cd, and I just don’t have time to go and wait for an hour or two after an appointment to get a cd player installed in my car, since it didn’t come with one when I got it, which doesn’t make it “bad” since it was in mint condition when I got it in the first place, which isn’t important since I like radio anyhow, so I will stop writing about this now. It’s time to listen to some music on my computer for the night [ok, really, I will stop writing now].