Radio Today

There is a common sentiment that the radio industry is on the downfall. This is not true at all the radio industry is just as strong as ever. There are many outlets for people who are looking to get into the radio industry. One outlet that is available to college students is to get involved in their campus radio stations. Many colleges around the country have these stations that are often run by students with a faculty supervisor, for example at George Mason University the campus station is known as WGMU. This station is broadcast over the internet and is run by students. This includes everything from the on air personalities to the commercials that they play over the air to promote different events and products. When asked on how he felt about WGMU and his future in the radio industry Andrew Hood, one of the students involved with the station said “Radio is something that has become my passion and my time at WGMU has helped me get better at the basics so I can carry on into the workplace in some form”. While the perception is that radio is on the decline, in reality it is just as vibrant and thriving as ever and there are plenty of jobs for those who know were to look.

In recent years there has been an introduction of a new medium within the radio world. Satellite radio has been on the rise due to it’s convenience. Satellite radio is claiming to be the way to the future. For a minimal subscription fee you can have access to radio that is available transcontinental and has no commercials that cause a break in the flow of the music. When this technology emerged many professionals within the radio community were concerned. They thought that the rise of satellite radio would cause the downfall and eventual destruction of terrestrial radio stations. When asked to comment on satellite radio DJ Khan a long time radio personality said “we thought satellite was going to be the death of us, luckily that didn’t happen”. The reason satellite radio was unable to replace the more terrestrial radio signals is because people were unwilling to pay for a service they could get for free. Another reason that it did not replace traditional radio is that it requires a special receiver to be installed into certain cars, which people once again were unwilling to pay for. While the professionals of radio thought that satellite was the beginning of the end for them, it just turned out to be another medium that people could use to access music if they needed.  So they comfortably found a way to exist side by side.

With all of the advancements within the radio industry not all of them were destined for greatness. The most recent example of this would be HD radio. This was a technology that sounded great in theory yet fell short in practice. What it does is it breaks the various radio frequencies into subsections which would allow for stations to cater to different audiences and programming stations. The reason behind it failing to catch on is that in order to receive these subsections a special receiver has to be installed into your car. When asked about HD radio Nicholas DeVito, a student at George Mason, stated “HD radio sounds awesome, but the reason I don’t have it is I don’t feel like paying for the installation”. This sentiment is shared by many across the nation which is why the HD radio market is turning into a failure. If you would like to listen to the broadcasts without having to pay for the installation fee there are several places you can do so online. One website known as tunein.com has several HD stations that you can listen too. So while HD radio is a failure so far in the car radio it may find a new life in the online radio medium.