Monday, September 21, 2009

The State of the News Media 2009 - Audio

Some of the major conclusions of this chapter are:


  • Radio talkers (who are mostly conservative) devoted an overwhelming amount of their airtime to the 2008 election, but oddly, radio newscasts devoted less time than most media to the election. 
  • NPR spent more time on international news, probably because they actually have reporters in other countries.
  • This chapter is called "Audio" instead of "Radio" because other forms of audio are picking up listeners, including satellite radio, listening to radio stations on cell phones, and (relevant to this class) podcasts and internet streams of radio stations' regular signals.  The big idea here, which also applies to other media like newspapers, is that the traditional analog audience is shrinking, and thee digital, online audience is growing.  BUT the ad revenue is much smaller on the internet, so this is a problem for the companies that own radio stations.

This section seemed like the most relevant to our class:
It should be noted that as the newer technologies grow, the financial importance of news could drop. The technologies that allow consumers more control over what they listen to, such as mobile, podcasting, specialized Internet stations such as Pandora and more, may not involve news at all. In terrestrial radio, almost every one offers some level of news, if only a few minutes at the top of the hour. But even that amount may shrink in new technologies more targeted to niche audiences wanting to tailor the content themselves.

No comments:

Post a Comment