Sunday, February 22, 2009

Talk about mixed feelings

Cory Doctorow has a plausible summary of How the Internet Will Devour, Transform, or Destroy Your Favorite Medium.  On the block:  music, big budget movies, books, and newspapers.

But I think Cory missed the industry that may be killed first by the Internet.  Radio.  XM is just the start.  Cost cutting has hurt variety and maybe quality of radio broadcasts.  And the competition is getting tougher:  in my life, cheap music and Pandora and, most of all, podcasts and audible.com have crowded out radio almost completely.  Even NPR gets no more than 3 minutes of bumpf before I flick to the mp3 player. 

I think radio -- or maybe just the spectrum it uses -- is going to have to find a new mission.

No comments: