AOL Radio, Pandora, Slacker and Last.fm are some of the online radio services which have become popular these last few years. Many of these are also available on mobile devices such as cell phones. I will look at the impact of online radio on traditional radio broadcasters to find out if this means the end of local radio stations.
I appears that local radio stations are on their way to become extinct. They are being threatened by the advance of online and satellite radio. These competing services typically offer hundreds of music and entertainment channels. Some of the channels are even commercial-free. In particular, online radio has become quite popular by offering a virtually unlimited number of radio stations.
While traditionally local radio has been the only truly mobile radio, online radio services such as Pandora are now available on portable devices such as cell phones.
AOL Radio uses CBS radio as its broadcasting platform. It comes with over 200 music channels. In addition it offers access to more than 150 local CBS radio stations. The underlying CBS radio platform "play.it" also allows listeners to create their own customized music channels. This is done by entering the names of albums, tracks or artists. The tracks played on each music channels can also be stored on an iPod for later playback by using 3-rd party tool iGetMusic.
Other online music services have followed suit and are offering similar customized music channels. Pandora and Last.fm allow listeners to enter the name of an artist and then play music by randomly selecting titles by the chosen artist as well as other titles which are similar in genre or character. Thus far, however, competing music services have fallen short from offering similarly fully customized radio channels.
Is the end of local radio near? The increase of competition from satellite and online radio has started to take away listeners from local radio stations. Traditional radio seems to have a hard time to stop this trend. Online radio is particular useful for niche broadcasters who have been unable to broadcast due to the high cost and licensing of frequency space.
The large number of available stations is a big plus for online radio listeners. However, this is a problem for online broadcasters. This large number of stations is diluting the number of listeners. Therefore streaming radio broadcasters have found it difficult to be profitable. The lower cost of online radio at the same time allows creation of more appealing content than local radio by serving niche markets and inserting fewer commercials.
However, local radio has one big advantage over satellite and online radio. That is local content such as local news and events. Thus far the poor audio quality of FM radio has been a big drawback. However, new digital radio broadcasts are set to improve the audio quality. One of these technologies is HD radio. The big factors that will ultimately determine the fate of each technology are content and convenience. Online radio and traditional radio each have their own niche in terms of offering unique content and both offer high mobility and convenience so there will probably be no clear winner.
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You can get further details about AOL Radio and audio transmitter products from Amphony's website.
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