Interesting to see the discussion flowing here at Newradiostrategies regarding the definition of Radio, fuelled by the posts of Robin and Billy.
I wrote a post (unfortunately Dutch language only..) on the definition of Radio last week at radio.nl, a popular Dutch website, related to… Radio and its definition…
I started looking at some welknown definitions too, like the one found in your Apple dictionary (push F12 and after the ‘bubble’ you will get the dictionary):
“The activity or industry of broadcasting sound programs to the public.”
I found this definition too limiting, especially when I look to our own in-house ‘radio’ activities
In the radio.nl post I examine some of the elements that I believe are interesting to more then just the Dutch audience.
We had a lot going on during the 12.5 year anniversary of our alternative radio station KinkFM. Let me share them with you here too, just to shed some light on the developments.
Not only did we live broadcast the shows with Dutch artists and their favourite music over various media (such as cable, internet, iTunes…), we also showed which song was playing on the internet and iTunes and provided playlists and background information through the KinkFM website.
We gave the listeners the opportunity to interact with mail, sms and calling in.
We showed them what was going on by having a live webcam coverage of what was happening in the studio.
After the shows were done, we provided podcasts to those listeners that did not record, were not able to listen or wanted to listen again.
In short we did do a lot more than ‘just’ air a radsioshow.
This led me to define radio a lot broader:
Radio: “means or media to broadcast or make available information for collection, of which sound programmes form the foundation, potentially added with text, images and interaction.”
One could easily argue that much more media than just ‘radio’ could be captured under this definition. And then you would be right…Media formats are blurring…
A radio station that would not add some or all of the elements mentioned in my definition, would probably be struggling in the ‘new radio world’… Maybe it signals the death of definition for old style radio definitions…