The Future of Radio

NPR's David Folkenflik did a piece last week called "Newspapers Wade Into An Online-Only Future".

He tells the now familiar story of how the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, its presses no longer rolling, hopes to find a future for a dramatically reduced staff in an online-only news production called Seattlepi.com.

Seattlepi faces the same problems that all old media organizations face. They are trying to understand where they fit in this world where readers seem less inclinded to read newspapers. Instead, it appears, they make daily news mashups in real time from whatever catches their eye in the stream of news that makes its way across their computer screens.

Suggesting that the question facing all but the largest news producers is not "what should I do with my Web site?" (they've put plenty of time into that already,) but "what makes me stand out in that stream?"

In Folkenflik's piece he quotes Hearst Newspapers President Steve Swartz saying "Very few people come to our Web site and try to re-create the experience of reading a newspaper." This may seem a little obvious, but it's worth repeating. You read a paper cover to cover because that's what you have in your hands. But when your read an article online, you have the whole world at your fingertips.

Broadcasting is different. Absorbing a story works very differently if you're listening. Radio is a linear presentation, you have to listen to the end if you want to hear the end of the story. You can't skip or skim as you do when you're reading.

Radio fills a genuine need because there are a lot of things people do in life that don't require a lot of brain power, but use a lot of time. Like driving, and cleaning the house. Painting, gardening, carpentry, construction, and so on. Almost anything, except those things that require a lot of brain power. Like reading and writing.

If you want to listen to a story carefully, you have to stop reading or listening to anything else. Ironically, as I listened to Folkenflik's story on my computer I found my eyes wandering around the screen looking for something to do. It was an exercise of restraint to back away from my computer and focus on listening to the story.

But while focused listening may raise some issues, using your computer to generate background audio is in significant demand. Looking at some radio station Web statistics the other day it was clear that unlike Swartz's readers, a lot of people do want to use their computers to re-create a radio listening experience. They go to the "listen" page and switch on the stream. They are turning their computers into radios and then, I assume, getting on with their jobs as they listen.

So background listening maintains the advantage it has over print when you're on your computer just as it does when you're driving. It's hands free. Set it going and do something else online that isn't using your full attention.

Which seems to suggest that radio station should keep the live streams going and make appointment listening as portable as possible.

Related Stories
- Letter from Ann Arbor News Publisher Laurel Champion
- Will NPR Save the News?