BCE Inc. is selling off 45 of its 103 regional radio stations as it cuts nine per cent of its workforce, including journalists and other workers at its Bell Media subsidiary.
BCE Inc. is selling off 45 of its 103 regional radio stations as it cuts nine per cent of its workforce, including journalists and other workers at its Bell Media subsidiary.
Because streaming music, podcasts, and audio books exist, and basically everyone has a smart phone.
Radio is dead no matter what the stations do.
This is probably a factor as well but I know many tradesmen and the like still just listening to radio. New guy doesnt like the song? Too bad, its what the station played. I also like to listen to local stations while driving, camping or fishing to get weather or traffic updates.
Out in the tractor radio is pretty much the only option, cell service comes and goes over the hills but the radio is always there for you!
I mean you could get a bluetooth speaker and download some music but then you’ll have to decide what you want to listen to and thats a lot to ask some days.
I actually run my own streaming setup where I stream off my computer through VPN, local buffering on the phone, it works really well in the truck where service is usually not interrupted for that long.
However a lot of people don’t realize just how many hours of music you can burn through when you’re putting in 12hr+ days in the field or even the mental effort in picking what to play next when your eyes are up front (I don’t run autosteer on anything). So just turn on the radio and get the job done!
The main killer feature radio still has is geographically relevant news
If you’re listening to NPR maybe. Most FM stations in America just pump out pre-recorded programming from a centralized corporate source. There’s no “local” in corporate radio. No local DJ. No local programming. No local news.
In the states, broadcast TV will soon follow the same route as it’s no longer locally owned either.
This is a Canada instance.
That’s only going to be relevant for a few more years.
Radio is doomed. It’s not profitable to run without it being overloaded with ads, but even without ads the audience is going to steadily dwindle no matter what they do.
Doesn’t need to be a business. Give the air space back for public use. Pbs or real local public broadcasting, etc.
They would sell the spectrum before they did something like that. Prime real estate for longer range, medium speed ISM type communications.