The Radio Experience is Dying

Photo by Daniel Millhouse

With technology advancing leaps and bounds on what seems like a yearly basis, one form of media that used to be considered the coolest of all, radio, is now dying and is unrecognizable compared to what it once was.

It took several decades for radio to hit it's peak, but once rock'n'roll gained popularity it seemed like it would never bottom out. Radio represented youthful rebellion to teenagers and college-aged kids.

Elvis.

Jerry Lee Lewis.

Little Richard.

It was the medium that reached out to the kids. They looked forward to listening to the radio to catch the newest hits. This was where radio DJ's gained celebrity status. They were the gatekeepers of "cool" for the youth. Their personalities were big and some DJ's such as Wolfman Jack became just as famous as many of the music artists they were playing.

In the last decade and a half, radio has seen rough times. A combination of new technology, streaming, and the deregulation of media have nearly killed off radio entirely.

With devices such as iPods and smart phones being produced, many people are turning to these devices for their entertainment needs. The rise of the computer hasn't helped either. Computers are now in nearly every household, and can store and play music easier than ever before.

What has hurt radio is the act of streaming. Not necessarily on the small scale it was a decade ago, but the way it is now with Pandora, Spotify, and iHeart radio. With services like this you can simply type in the name of an artist and listen to their music or the music of similar artists. You can do this for free as long as you listen to the occasional advertisement or pay a small amount of money to listen to your music commercial free.

The problem with this is that there are no DJ's. It's robot/computer controlled. The kids are missing out on the personalities that once hosted their favorite music and everything is becoming more generic. The fun is gone.

Also with streaming, you are now just a target to these large companies. A local DJ used to be able to play a local artist who might be performing somewhere nearby and talk about how you could see them if you liked the music. With streaming, you discover the music the corporations tell you to listen to. If you're lucky, you may get to listen to new music from a local artist to you, but most people aren't that lucky. Plus unless the artist advertises with the company, then you won't know where to find them unless you search for them yourself online which most kids don't do while listening to streaming music.

Streaming on the internet didn't initially start off as a bad thing either. Radio stations such as KRock-Echo gained the attention of a million plus listeners a month, remaining commercial free in the process, and having world famous DJ, Scott Free, host the music. He played new artists, independent labels, and songs by artists that were great, but not necessarily their hit songs that the labels picked out for you to listen on mainstream radio. This had the feeling of early rock'n'roll radio in the fifties mixed with new technology. Unfortunately this didn't last long.

Radio lost it's soul. AOL Music, Pandora, and other streaming services ditched DJ's shortly after the United States deregulated media, forcing thousands of DJ's out of work.

When radio deregulated, it was the death knell for DJ's. Many stations would lose their flair, robotizing their on-air play and eventually homogenizing music as a whole. For kids today to discover new music, a major corporation would either have to tell you what to listen to or the kid would have to do some work and find the new artist they don't know exists yet. Most kids won't do the legwork though. They rely on entities such as American Idol and The Voice to tell them who the good, new artists are.

Technology is a good thing. When it advances, it usually improves the quality of humanity's life. Unfortunately radio is one of the casualties and kids will never know again what it's like for radio to become an experience, not just background music while they do their chores or homework.