Future of Radio

Lots of things going on at at Hollow Earth Radio : a growing group of dj’s and a lot of effort going into archiving found sound. You can go here to look at our little collection for downloads.

My friend,Tim Boucher, reminded me of this sci-fi daydream I had of the future of radio. I think it’s not really about radio so much as what’s happening with the fact that we are now so saturated with independent media. Here’s the thought:

“In the future - there will be a comeback for radio, and it will become popular again in the underground. With the overwhelming bombardment of music on the internet, and the forced accessibility - young people will grow bored of having everything at their fingertips. Out of this, a buzz will go around about building your own radios / radio stations.

There will be a shift in the way people think about media distribution. One of the reasons the radio comeback will be interesting will be in the actual physical hunt to find it - as the majority of frequencies will be short range and inconsistent. Picture people roaming the streets with homemade cyberpunk radios seeking out weak signals in the forest. With the large catalog of music to select from on the internet, people will seek out a different thrill. The balance will shift and the importance will be heavy on mixing of genres and broadcast performance, locality, genuine human experience. Perhaps just in the unique experience of being in that geographical place and that time and possibly being the only one listening. And because commercial radio will become have so outdated as to have gone out of business, the citizen band will be extended and the only radio will be what we would now call ‘pirate.’”

As Tim Boucher says: “we need to create a new internet”.

–Garrett Kelly