What’s new in radio?

Radio insiders still don’t know if radio stations will go off the air completely one day and operate fully online.

Yet, one thing is certain. Smartphones are the next “it” platform for local stations.

According to M. Rafiq, the technological development and innovation chief at the Indonesian National Private Radio Association (PRSSNI), a total shift from analog to digital radio depends largely on the Internet infrastructure in the country.

“The first condition is that everyone must have good Internet access,” he said, adding that advertisers should also be on board with radio stations in fully switching from analog to digital.

Lastly, the move to a fully digital radio format depends heavily on technological shifts in society as well, such as gadget ownership.  

“What we are experiencing right now was what developed countries such as Japan and those in Europe went through 10 to 15 years ago,”
he said.

However, he pointed out that even in technologically advanced countries, analog radios stay in operation.

“Listening to the radio through analog frequencies is zero cost. If we listen to the radio through our gadgets, laptops or computers, it is paid for since there must be an Internet connection,” he noted.

Yet, broadcasters are indeed “rushing after gadgets”, as Rafiq notes, now that a majority of stations, especially those in Jakarta, have websites which stream their programs.

Junas Miradiarsyah, the general manager for youth-oriented Prambors FM, said that his station has developed a BlackBerry launcher, with applications (or apps) for Android and Apple underway.

“Our smartphone apps are quite new because we were not only concerned about making them, but we also had to consider the form of the content available through the apps,” he said.

Similarly, two youth oriented radio stations, Trax FM and Hard Rock FM, are planning to launch applications for mobile gadgets as well. They even plan to use these apps to support their activation programs.

“We will make off-air events through which listeners have to go to our Facebook and download our mobile apps, which will run a coupon system. They have to show these apps so they can participate in our activation,” she told The Jakarta Post.

Yet can radio still be called radio when it has gone fully digital? Radio insiders say yes.

“Radio is defined by the presence of a broadcaster broadcasting songs. Digitalization is just a form of presenting old radio in newer ways, that’s it,” Tio Prasetyo Utomo, the assistant program director of Trax FM, said.

Marco Anjasmoro, the program director for Hard Rock FM, added that the radio remains radio no matter what platform they chose because the radio would always be more personal.

“What we offer is personal communication. We still call our listeners Hard Rockers. We still establish a different sort of intimacy compared to television and print media,” he said, adding that digital radios were just “developments in access”.

But an issue that might soon emerge for the radio as it increasingly turns digital is regulation.

According to Rafiq, the 2002 broadcasting law sets guidelines for analog radio. However, no specific set of regulations for radio streaming exists yet.

“Regulations are always two to three steps behind technological advancements,” he told the Post.

He added that the issues connected to digital radio will not be connected to airwaves since digital radios do not need any, but more with the type of content being broadcast.  

“Thus regulations on content, not infrastructure, are what is needed,” he said.

Hence, with so many new technological shifts to conquer, Queen was probably correct about radio: “You’ve yet to have your finest hour”.

App attack: Prambors FM has a BlackBerry app, with apps for Android and Apple under construction.