Radio

Commercial radio, on the other hand, seeks to deliver sizeable audiences of consumers to those advertisers and sponsors who provide its income. It will tend to favour popular programmes over those which might appeal only to a minority, and will target heavily populated rich markets rather than thinly populated poorer markets. Commercial radio may also, however, develop very specialized formats, such as jazz or classical music, in order to capitalize on relatively small but high-spending niche markets. Output is characterized by aggressive marketing, and slick, image-conscious presentation.

At the end of the 20th century technological, political, and commercial trends are blurring many of these traditional distinctions. Commercial local radio stations often find that large companies are taking control of a majority of their shares. Ownership is being concentrated in fewer hands, and a pattern of syndicated programming, beamed throughout a commercial network by ever more sophisticated satellite distribution technology, is leading to many formerly independent community-based stations adopting identical programme and music formats. Public-service broadcasters, such as those in France, Germany, Australia, Canada, and Britain, have faced tighter budgets and greater competition from deregulation, with the result that many now rely on advertising for a larger share of their revenue and face a declining share of their respective national audiences.

Digital audio broadcasting, which allows for a huge increase in the number of radio channels that can be fitted on to the world’s electromagnetic spectrum, is likely to accelerate the steady move away from nationwide mixed programme services towards a vast array of special-interest channels. Some broadcasters, with an eye to the commercial potential of the so-called information superhighway, are even developing approaches to radio that may eventually turn broadcasting in an opposite direction by moving away from continuous streams of radio that is produced, formatted, and scheduled by a core of professional staff towards a pattern of providing audio on demand. This would allow listeners to assemble their own schedules from archives of music and news reports that are now accessible via computer technology. However, the essential nature of radio as an unobtrusive medium, part of the background or “aural wallpaper” of daily life, means such moves to a more interactive future are likely to be gradual.