First of all, I should be clear. When I say “radio”, I mean music and speech, not necessarily broadcast via radio waves.
Since November of last year I have been occasionally putting together short (30-50 minute) radio shows comprised of music I want to share along with my nerdy voice telling the listening world why they should love this music (or at least why I love it).
From the point of view of traditional radio, there are some serious problems with my humble show:
- There is no mechanism for artist compensation
- I ramble and stumble over my words
- I am generally a fool
The first problem isn’t up to me to fix (beyond throwing some cash at the EFF to try to affect change in our copyright system). The second and third problems are beyond my ability to fix (I think).
What’s important, though, is that these two problems are from the point of view of traditional radio. You and I are not traditional radio.
To a small group of people, my rambling/stuttering-foolery is bearable – maybe even sometimes enjoyable. These are my friends and a few kindred passers-by.
My Taste and Rambling Do Not Scale
The music I chose, and even more so, the commentary I record, has limited appeal. It is unlikely that it would ever be downloaded regularly by more than a few hundred people, if that. However, that doesn’t matter.
The cost for me to record and distribute my show is negligible. The joy I get from choosing the music and sharing my thoughts is by far sufficient motivation to produce the show. The feedback get from the small group that do listen regularly makes it all the more rewarding.
The hardware and software to put together a show like I have are already in the hands of many, if not most, people on the web.
I am Not Alone
Fortunately, it’s not me alone that will comprise the future of radio. That is the key. There are others.
So far, I’ve been listening to these web radio shows:
- Adam Brault’s MathCaddy Radio – It takes a format similar to Acts of Volition Radio – music picks and commentary
- LUG Radio – Really geeky talk radio show by a bunch of Linux geeks from the UK. Laced with profanity and surprisingly funny
- ITConversations.com – Not quite a radio show in of itself, but a collection of audio interviews and conference presentations by information technology leaders. Highlights include Tim O’Reilly on the shift to web-as-application-platform and a recent episode of The Gillmore Gang with Brendan Eich from the Mozilla Foundation
Some of these might sound like audio punishment to you, but that is part of the beauty of downloadable internet radio: you will never hear these unless you want to. You will never stumble across one of these shows when you are flipping through stations in your car.
While I’m listing to music geeks and geek geeks, you can find (or produce) radio on the subjects that you are passionate about.
Small shows produced by enthusiasts with small audiences don’t show up in Billboard charts or Nielsen ratings, but they can be a far more rewarding experience for the listener and producer than traditional broadcast radio.
I spoke and wrote a bit about this subject back in 2002. Re-reading my post I think the points about audio making sense for some applications and text for others still holds up. Music, of course, is one of the greatest applications of audio.
