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According to Dean Sakai, of Electric Village, Internet radio and
traditional radio will eventually merge : "Radio will become
digital, and the receivers (clients) will make pulls through
cellular technology." (6797) "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" David Sarnoff's associates responding to his urgings for investment in radio. All of the following forecasts are from So-o-o-o you are going on the air! & The Radio Speech Primer by Robert West, M.A. (1934) "What is the destiny of this incredible invention the uses of which Marconi himself did not forsee? In less than two decades we have witnessed a change from the production of stuttering static to uninterrupted and true reproduction of sound. Muddling, meaningless programs have given way to showmanship... Nevertheless, the present state of broadcasting has provoked impatience in high-minded critics. Their dissatisfaction springs, in a degree, from their unwillingness to understand that basically the networks as operated today are a business proposition, with the conditions and limits which such auspices entail... [So] Whither radio? What developments are on the horizon of broadcasting? Which roads shall it follow to reach greater objectives? What tendencies are indicative of the new functions of the air system?" (p. 161). Savants have always been intrigued by the possibility of a synthetic international language which could be spoken and understood by the natives of Greenland, Australia, Patagonia, and Peru with equal facility. Esperanto and Ido are the two fabricated tongues mostly current today in this field. However, the spread of these languages has never made great progress due to the obstacles of rapid communication. Radio offers the most effective way yet devised to overcome this difficulty. If a synthetic language for international use is agreed upon, its dissemination via the radio would be rapid and widespread. (p. 162-63) Ultimately, the broadcasting stations in each country would be delegated to broadcast programs in the new international radio language and this privilege would be rotated among the different nations. The possibilities of international understanding through this medium are far from visionary. (p. 164) Broadcasting can look to to find an analogy in the development of motion pictures. Motion pictures an an art form reached its highest peak in 1927, and then lapsed into a sameness which appeared suicidal until the fortunate advent of the "talkies." Broadcasting which attempts to confine itself to fixed patterns may finally reach a similar impasse. Perhaps television will lift programs out of the slough of uniformity in the same way that sound came to the rescue of the cinema. Radio which has been lazily satisfied to grab its talents from other fields of entertainment may thus be compelled to generate an entertainment formula of its own. (p. 164) "Radio guild" periods might be employed as tryouts for stars in other fields and thus become in time a reliable barometer of the broadcasting skill of the performer and the public's reaction. Every station should have a "radio guild" in one form or another. It should invite the cooperation of a little theater or film art group in its community to take charge, and the station operator could act in an advisory capacity (p. 162). In view of the vital influence of broadcasting in the life of the nation, it is worth considering the suggestion that the President of the United States be empowered to appoint an additional member of his cabinet to be known as the Secretary of Radio. This special department might perhaps be divided into various bureaus each of which would assume direct supervision over general program policies in the same manner that standards are set for different branches of our economic, professional and cultural existence... Unless something is done in this direction, there are those who claim that private broadcasting interests, left to themselves, will sound their own death knell (p. 166). Today nations have this means of reaching each other almost instantly. A message can be flung around the world in four seconds. Radio can make all frontiers a figment of the imagination ... Radio must, therefore, bide its time as an international peace agent (p. 166-67). Radio's future lies in the one united effort of the best educational forces in all countries for the spread of peace and the brotherhood of man. Perhaps someday the United States of Europe and the United States of America will take the lead in forming the United States of the World, and radio shall have been the principal means of consummating and maintaining this idea (p. 167). |
