Making Radio
| 07:49 UK time, Friday, 6 October 2006
I like surprises in digital tech.
We've long guessed that music and news will go on getting easier to hear - downloads and podcasts are just the start.
Some broadcasters, though, have worried that users choosing their own content would undermine the 'channels' that give us a living.
Would the audience forget us; would listener loyalty become a thing of the past?
Like my teenage daughter, who makes her own 'channel' compiling track listings on her MP3 player.
(She doesn't miss the DJ wittering on about the tabloid newspaper stories he's been reading. I can't imagine why.)
Now there's another clue that while people will make their own choices, they might still want channels.
A new (no endorsement, haven't tried it, it might be the first of its type but certainly not the last) claims to enable you to download not just tracks but channels compiled by the subscription service based on the kind of thing you have listened to in the past.
I use a different subscription service than the one for which this player was built, and these suggested playlists really work.
I've mentioned before that I like Italian pop music of the '60s, '70s and '80s. (No, this is not the weirdest thing about me.) The subscription service has added a lot of new names to my list of favourites by monitoring what I've chosen before.
Maybe we have to find a way of compiling news programmes based on similar response-measuring techniques.
As news professionals, we'd certainly learn a lot about what counts.
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