Radio dominated the first half of the 20th century but the advent of affordable TV sets in the 1950s seemed to spell doom for the format. Yet, radio endured. Radio was able to create a distinct image for itself, separate from TV. I have own theories as to why (cars, transistor radios and the music industry) but nothing conclusive.
Why are podcasts (read talk radio) still crazy popular? Cause sometimes you just want to listen without having to pay attention visually
Price. You can buy an AM/FM radio on an integrated circuit for probably under a dollar ready to integrate. I’ve seen radios given away as swag including wired earbuds.
Ubiquitous access to portable devices that show video is close, but the devices are expensive, data is expensive, and watching video while driving is illegal.
watching video while driving is illegal
…
And besides, that is also extremely dangerous for yourself and everyone around you.
Hell, the entire reason I skirt YouTube official is so I can turn off my damn screen.
Cars. The answer is cars.
And factory / construction work
It’s basically all of those things, but also that a newer technology doesn’t necessarily mean the older technology has no use. People still use bicycles even though cars and motorcycles exist. People still read books even though audiobooks and TV shows exist. The number of people doing those things may have gone down, but they have a specific use case and need that the “better” technology doesn’t satisfy.
On the other side, there are technologies that get entirely replaced by the successor. because it’s just flatly better even in the same scenarios. 8-Tracks being made completely irrelevant by Cassettes, for example.
People still read books even though audiobooks and TV shows exist
Indeed. Why would I replace my reading time with inferior substitutes?
Don’t get me wrong, audiobooks are great for listening while you drive, but personally? I still prefer reading printed words off the page.
(TV shows are fine, too, but they’re a different category of entertainment than reading books)
8 tracks are better than cassettes, they’re a loop so there’s no rewinding and they have higher audio fidelity. It was cost that killed the 8 track.
Cars. For the majority of the 20th century, radio was pretty much the only way to listen to music in a car. That alone was likely enough to keep it economically viable.
IIRC Motorola started out making car radios and the name is motor(car) and the at the time popular -ola suffix for forming product names.
You can listen passively during work (household, cooking, construction work) or while driving. You often need your eyes. Also radio often plays music which doesn’t consume a lot of active thoughts. It depends a bit on the station though, some talk a lot and play less music.
Radio was portable pretty early on. Also, the first TV stations didn’t play music. TV was for stories, Radio for music.
No portable TVs, you can listen with your eyes closed, music.
I don’t understand how the two technologies even compete. This post makes no sense to me.
Because Alistor is a crafty fucker.
More genuinely… they’re not entirely overlapping experiences. Just listening without needing to stare frees room for more consideration or imagination.
There are things that are better on a TV, like a Marvel movie, and things that are better on a radio, like a Douglas Adams story.
I’d agree with you on cars — cheap and easy to keep throwing radios in.
Sidebar: Not many classic radio shows made the transition to tv. Jack Benny, literally the most popular of shows, had a rough switch to TV because the timing was so different. For example: Instead of a foley guy doing a doorbell sound and immediately having it open, you now have a camera spending a couple seconds tracking someone walking across the room to answer a door in silence. The vaudeville structure of having a song in the middle, or trying to put on a show as the premise of the show, didn’t work (until the Muppets). Then there’s the whole laugh track or laugh box juicing issue that some railed against or over-embraced, and it all kind of fell apart. A few managed, but it was rare.
I listen to the radio a lot. The BBC has some excellent radio on offer. My favourite is Radio 6 Music, a DAB-only station that just plays music all day. Various DJs, a bit of chat, but mostly music. No ads. Like others have said, it doesn’t demand attention, you can listen or not.
It’s kind of a bonkers question because they are different technologies with different use cases only related in that they were both used for entertainment. It’s almost like “how did trains survive the invention of airplanes?” (or boats and planes).
Radio and TV are like apples and oranges. Sure, they’re both fruit, but they’re different enough to occupy different niches in our diets
Well, why would radio be superseded by TV? Imagine any situation in which a person could listen to radio. Could they just switch to a TV? Would they want to switch to a TV?
