AOL Radio - The Extinction Of Local Radio?

Online radio such as AOL Radio, Slacker, Pandora and Last.fm have gained attractiveness lately. Additionally, a lot of cordless products including mobile phones support these platforms. Are local radio stations doomed? I will take a closer look at online radio to attempt to answer this question. In particular I will investigate the effect of streaming radio on local broadcasters.

Local radio appears to be having a hard time in today's radio landscape with competing satellite and online radio services taking away listeners by offering commercial-free music and entertainment. The internet has allowed access to a virtually infinite number of online radio stations.

A lot of online radio services like Pandora are now accessible on portable products such as mobile phones and other wireless audio products via appropriate apps. This adds mobility to online radio which has still been the trump card of local radio stations.

AOL Radio which boasts 200 plus music channels of 25 genres makes use of CBS radio as its underlying platform. It also offers access to 150 national 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.

Pandora and other online radio services have similarly begun to offer customized music. The user can enter music-related information such as artist, track or album name. These channels will then pick tracks which are similar to the information entered. On the other hand, most online radio broadcasters lack the ability to create fully customized radio stations such as the "play.it" platform.

Are conventional radio stations destined to become extinct by the constant reduction of market share due to online radio? Online radio has proved useful in particular for niche broadcasters due to the inherently lower broadcasting expense in comparison with local radio stations.

Online radio broadcasters have found it hard to be profitable. The main reason is the vast number of competiting channels which is diluting listeners. At the same time, on the other hand, there is less pressure to insert commercials because of the lower expenses of broadcasting compared with traditional stations. This has made online radio content more appealing than terrestrial radio.

However, local radio has one big benefit over satellite and online radio. That is local content such as local news and events. So far the poor audio quality of FM radio has been a big disadvantage. Nonetheless, newest digital radio broadcasts are set to enhance the audio quality. One of these technologies is HD radio. It is difficult to predict a clear winner in the battle between online and local radio since both offer their own exclusive content and high mobility which are the crucial aspects that will decide the destiny of each service.