You've reached our premium or archival content
To access this page, and more great content just like it, you need to become a paid subscriber.
If you already have an account, please login.
Otherwise, registration is quick and you'll have access instantly after payment.
You could write a thesis on the stimuli provoked by this article.
Never in history has the consumer been served by a variety of sources of information and entertainment.
Traditional sources of information and entertainment had to adapt to survive. Recent changes in the way we consume entertainment and information are not the only changes that ocurred.
Radio: news used to be provided by the newspapers and read by newsreaders. Then the radio stations provided their own news services. Over time newsrooms and radio networks have consolidated. We have fewer newsrooms but the legacy continues in that radio news can be late breaking.
When it comes to entertainment, radio has eveolved from live performance of a pianola to orchestras to recorded content. In the 1960s radio station programs changed from dramas, quiz shows to top 40, newstalk and talkback. Radio was competing with FTA TV.
FTA TV became the source of dramas, quizzes and movies. The 6pm news bulletin was the dominant source of news. Over 20 years ago, the 6pm TCN9 bulletin attracted more than one million viewers. Today its about 350 thousand.
Then people are sourcing their entertainment from youtube, rumble and subscription services. Today's FTA fare is 'reality' content whether that content is contrived relationships in finding partners and cooking to singing, fishing, trash and treasure auction/what's the value of the item.
Lots of shows on dogs (Dog House, Paul O'Grady and Harry Cooper) and vets doing soft tissue work (Bondi Vet), orthopaedics (Paul Fitzgerald) and goats' gonads removals and birthing animals (Yorkshire Vet).
Other content providers such as subscription TV via IP or satellite are providing the dramas and movies once provided by FTA TV. The current fare on FTA is a result of adapt or perish.
Radio too as described has had to evolve and adapt from the 1930s to today. Then choice and source of music content has diversified.
The one thing that radio and FTA TV offer is breaking news. That cannot be made by the youtube talking head shows or Netflix to name a few.
There may be the exception with a live streaming twitter feed of a citizen being arrested and/or shot by authorities in real time.
But live events come from consolidated services from radio and FTA TV and subscription services such as CNN, Sky and Fox.
Newspapers have evolved over time. They replaced the "here ye here ye" town crier. Over time, internet classifieds in car and real estate adverts have taken market share from papers. As a result, papers have gone and new publications have emerged online: The Guardian, Daily Mail, The Saturday Paper, The Spectator to name a few including community newspapers.
There may be an issue with verification of facts afforded by the newspapers. But that's the marketplace, a diversity of narratives. There aren't centralised opinion makers.
This has been a simplified view on the changes in radio, FTA TV and newspapers over time. There may well be a thesis to elaborate and explain the evolution of these old media and emergence of new media. Nothing is static.
One final topic is the issue of a brand name and/or trade mark becoming part of the vernacular. The author mentions Hoovering the house. Hoovering the house is performed by other brands of vacuum cleaners.
That is the problem with a pioneering brand. No one Dysons the house.
However googling is another description of the action of searching on the web. That internet searching is tied to the brand. No one googles on another search engine. No one googles on a Bing, Yahoo or DuckDuckGo.
Thank you
Anthony, it is simplified and there may be other explanations Belfield in the land of the Wangal and Darug peoples of the Eora Nation.
Audio has an advantage that keeps it alive and viable as new forms of entertainment emerge. Radio survived the introduction of television, home video and the interactive media of the computer age because it doesn't demand much of our attention. We consume it in the background. It keeps us entertained whilst we're doing something else. It makes doing what's important but not necessarily what we'd like to be doing more enjoyable.