Salt Lake Community College

COMM 1500

Section 400

Professor Bingham

Transition into Online Radio

 Whether you realize it or not, radio is a large part of most of our lives. In a recent study,

over 93% of Americans listen to the radio, whether it is online or traditional. It has become a

daily routine to jump your car and turn on the radio. I personally enjoy listening to the Morning

Zoo on 97.1 ZHT every morning on my way to school and every night on my way home from

work. I enjoy their witty banter and relatability. I hope to someday be just like Frankie and

Jessica. Although radio has become such a monumental part of our lives, many people have no

idea that traditional radio they have grown up with will soon change forever. To fully understand

this dramatic shift, we must first look back to how it started.

In 1910, the government passed the Wireless Ship Act, which required ships with more

than 50 passengers going more than 200 miles to be equipped with radios ranging around 100

miles. Two years after the Titanic, they enacted the Radio Act of 1912, which was intended to

stop the airwaves from being crammed. Since it crossed national and international borders, it

could not be owned by one person, it was free to every American. Although, using radio wave

did require you to get a license from the Commerce Department. This act continued in action

until 1927. By 1915, over 20 companies in America sold wireless communication systems. With

the start of World War I, many companies felt skeptical of getting tools from foreign companies

and America used this fear to their advantage. As radio developed, so did its regulations. The

Radio Corporation of America soon came to be and took over the radio we know today. The

government ruled that only 25% of RCA could be owned by foreign companies. This ruling

allowed Rupert Murdoch, head of the Australian New Corporation, to become a citizen and buy

multiple TV stations, one of which became Fox News. This gave the United States almost total

control over mass media. The government used this sort of mass communication to send out
important announcements to the public. Radio stations became soon the main source of

entertainment and news.

When my grandfather was a child, he and his family would gather around the radio to

hear the news. The concept of the radio being used this way became less popular as my parents

were being raised. When my mom was growing up, my grandfather would read the newspaper

for everyone at the breakfast table. At night, they would watch the late night news on TV. The

radio was only ever used in the family car on their long trips to entertain them. This decrease in

non-entertainment use happened because people became fearful that the media was not giving

them all the information. Through this panic came the idea of localism. According to the

Prometheus Radio Project, “localism is a principle of the law governing radio, and was

established as a bedrock policy principle in the Telecommunications Act of 1996.” The main

goal is that local radio companies own radio rights instead of companies out-of-state with a

hidden agenda. The main issue with this is that many also feared that this will give them

somewhat of a “god complex.” Luckily, it ended up working out. The concept is still used in

local radio stations today. The increase in localism brought back to radio for a short period of

time.

My sister and I had a much different experience. We grew up in the beginning stages of

social media. When we were very little, my mom would watch the news every morning in her

room while we listened to top 40 hits and ate breakfast. As time went on, we stopped listening to

the radio for music because we got an iPod. We no longer needed the radio to listen to all of our

favorite songs. The only way radio was surviving was the accessibility inside of cars. You had no
choice but to listen to music on the radio. This did not become the case when cars began to be

built with an auxiliary cord. When my mom’s car was built in 2004, it came equipped with a

cassette and cd player. My car, which was built in 2007, does not come with a cassette player

but does have a cd player and auxiliary input. This transition from cassette to auxiliary came

with the introduction of satellite and digital radio.

Within the last decade, satellite and digital radio have expanded the traditional radio. The

concept of satellite radio was not fully utilized until 2002 when XM and Sirius emerged onto the

scene. After their 2008 merger, the company faced difficulties. They struggled to make a profit

and competed for listeners. SiriusXM has over 175 music, news, and talk channels. The platform

also allows celebrities, like Oprah and Martha Stewart, to host their own shows. At only $15.99 a

month, users can listen anywhere. Satellite receivers can go from $50 to $200.

Since its introduction to the public in 2004, HD radio has been a large contribution to the

world of radio. HD radio a digital technology that enables broadcasters multicast up to three

additional compressed signals with the traditional analog frequency (Campbell pg. 162). For

example, BYU has several HD radio stations ranging from sports to popular music. Over 200

radio stations broadcast in HD. To use it, listeners must have a radio with an HD band. Digital

HD radio also provides song data, such as artist name, song title and allows listeners to mark

songs for playlists that can later be downloaded to an iPod and purchased on iTunes. Selling HD

was slow at first, but by 2016, every major car manufacturer was selling cars with HD radio

receivers.
 Online radio became popular with the introduction of the internet. It comes in two types.

The first involves an AM, FM, satellite or HD that is playing simultaneously on-air and on the

internet. IHeart radio has been the biggest company when it comes to this new technology. I

personally use this every morning while I’m waiting for my class to start. According to the

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, during the 2015 World Radio

website, “in the United States, the percentage of 13 to 35-year-olds listening to online radio is

now equal to that of traditional radio. Traditional radio listenership declined by 2% in this age

group in the past year.” With the advances already achieved in this digital age, many Americans

have decided to leave the traditional form of radio in the dust.

In 2004, a new phenomenon had hit. Podcasts were a new way to make audio files and

release them to the public on the internet. The idea of having a new way to listen to whatever you

wanted on the go was something couldn’t imagine. By 2016, one out of five Americans was

listening to a podcast. With this new integration of technology, the traditional radio will be gone.

The only hope is that cars don’t replace the old radios to online ones.
 Works Cited

Campbell, Richard, et al. Media & Culture: Mass Communication in a Digital Age.

Bedford/St. Martin's, Macmillan Learning, 2017.

“Celebrating Radio: Statistics.” Celebrating Radio: Statistics | World Radio Day 2015,

www.diamundialradio.org/2015/en/content/celebrating-radio-statistics.html.

“Localism.” Localism | Prometheus Radio Project, www.prometheusradio.org/localism.

“Radio Facts and Figures | News Generation | Broadcast Media Relations.” News Generation,

Inc.,

Wu, D., Hou, C., Sun, L., Ling, Y. and Liu, J. (2012). The XM Satellite Radio Software Module

of an Embedded Car Audio System. 9th ed. [ebook] JOURNAL OF SOFTWARE,

pp.1982-1992. Available at:

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f89c/5246f836cc5d03e22741bf7eee339c4fd354.pdf

[Accessed 8 Mar. 2018].