Internet Radio Giving Traditional Radio Stations A Second Chance
March 7, 2011The Internet is one of the admirable creations of mankind, as it brings collectively millions and millions of inhabitants from around the world and facilitates a common platform to do an endless variety of activities. The ability to find and share information, interact with each other through social networks and play games together are just a few of the activities many internet users enjoy regularly. Due to the advent of internet, a long-time amusement medium needed to change its ways to simply survive and continue to exist. The technology, you might have guessed, is established radio play, which had to transform itself into ‘the radio on the internet’ so it wouldn’t fall behind the rapidly changing digital world.
Radio on the Internet, or Internet Radio as it’s generally called, was first started in the former part of the 1990s but it didn’t find many avid listeners at conception. The few pioneer online radios had to make over the traditional system they had in place greatly in order to acquire an audience. This forced radio stations to present their audience with anything they wanted, no matter how divergent it was to established radio principles.
The basic difference between regular radio and internet radio is the fact that an Internet radio station can be heard from any personal computer around the world. This means the for example, if you are a located in the state of California in the United States, you can still catch up the online radio shows being broadcast from other states like New York, or even other countries on other continents. Such a feat isn’t possible with the conventional technology and that’s where Internet Radio stations holds a distinct advantage.
The Internet was initially committed strictly for instructional and communication purposes but as soon as its popularity soared, the Congress was left with no choice but to accept its usage for commercial motives too. The very first program to be broadcast through the internet was a tech-based talk show. Soon the musicians got involved and in 1994, famous rock band The Rolling Stones became the first musical group to use internet radio for one of their concerts. The radio stations followed this new trend and began to stream their live music for free on the internet.
Everything seemed alright until the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was introduced by Bill Clinton administration, which meant that the online radio stations had to start paying musicians for playing their material. Hence, the free broadcasts turned into a full fledged business where the users now had to pay to listen.
However, since the impact of this decision wasn’t extremely powerful before the turn of the 20th century, a plethora of quality online radio shows had emerged. The number of choices and variety imparted to the listeners quickly skyrocketed, giving listeners the ability to listen to whatever they want at anytime. Internet Radio has not is helping the audience, but also aspiring musicians who benefit from the increased airtime and are thankful for this game changing invention.
Listen to internet radio at 977Music.com. Streaming Free Online Music, to listeners from around the globe. Create an account today and start earning points, redeemable for prizes, while listening to your favorite music!
Leave a Reply