RadioBanter - View Single Post - "Digital SW will revolutionise cross-border Radio"

November 2nd 04, 10:49 PM

(John S.) wrote in message . com...
For better or worse the international broadcasters are leaving the HF
portion of the spectrum for satellite and internet broadcasting. The
latest is of course SRI. These departures are much more than cost
cutting measures. Indeed they say a lot about how these companies view
their current and future listening audiences. These departures
indicate the principal listening audience is in more developed
countries with choices beyond generator powered HF receivers.

It is an interesting move. What they'll end up with, I suspect, is a
very different KIND of audience. I listened to them regularly on
shortwave, but doubt I'll ever go to their website. Of course,
billions of people are on the internet and plenty of people will visit
their site, either accidentally or on purpose; but will people visit
it regularly? Some will, but I bet SRI won't have as many habitual
visitors to their site as they had routine listeners on shortwave. (I
could be wrong, but that's my prediction.) On the other hand, there'll
be more people who come to the site more-or-less by accident and never
visit a second time. In the end, I think it boils down to the
question: What kind of audience does SRI want?

Steve