Weakening Signals

In the easy decades of a tightly constricted mass media, there were three TV networks, monopoly newspapers and a handful of radio stations in each place. That lack of choice meant that much of popular culture was middle-brow in ambition and middling in quality. But the nation was guaranteed a common conversation about music, politics and nearly every other aspect of life.

The challenge for all media now is to find a path back to mass, while retaining as much as possible of the freedom and access that the infinite range of the Internet promises.

The programming on the radio these days does not light a way toward that goal. Music radio seems superfluous -- a selection of tunes nowhere near as varied as what iPod users choose for themselves, and without the added value that knowledgeable and entertaining DJs once provided. With the strong exception of public radio and a handful of all-news local stations such as Washington's WTOP, radio has largely gotten out of the news business -- too expensive. And the local talk programs that once made it easy for a traveler to figure out his location without ever glancing at a road sign have largely given way to Rush Limbaugh and a legion of imitators.

Despite this gloomy picture, radio's first 75 years have made it clear that there is an elemental desire for audio accompaniment, especially in the car, and so there is a future for something that may or may not carry the name "radio." The XM and Sirius pay satellite services won't make a lot of sense once free Internet radio is easily available in cars, but whatever entity XM and Sirius morph into after the government rules on their merger proposal, they will be well positioned as a leading provider of audio programming, whether we listen on a cellphone, PDA or in-car Web receiver.

Similarly, National Public Radio is now engaged in an existential struggle with the local public stations that from its beginning have been its financial foundation and sole means of distributing content. Inevitably, public radio's unique programs will be available by whatever technological means develop to satisfy Americans' desire to listen to music and hear the news.

The old delivery systems will either die off or change functions, just as the arrival of TV changed radio's role from the main stage of popular culture to a utility providing headlines, traffic reports, temperature and the latest pop hits.

The next decade or more will be a transitional time, as radio, like newspapers and television networks, forswears allegiance to any one means of distribution and declares itself platform-agnostic. Those media that, like the record industry, cling to old technology and a collapsed business model will see their futures crumble before their eyes.

Radio, shedding talent as fast as it loses audience, is rapidly becoming irrelevant to the younger generation. Yet most Americans still listen to something for much of the day. Radio could be the way into those ears, but only if it invests in creating compelling reasons to be there, only if it grabs hold of us the way the voices of past decades connected to the loves, pains and dreams of young listeners. As always, the future lies in the past.