Ninety years since the birth of commercial radio, it must now find its new business model

90 years ago, commercial radio as we know it now was born. It was in 1920 in Pittsburg, United States, when an engineer working at Westinghouse, Frank Conrad, designed and built a receiver capable of easily reproducing local signals. Today, commercial radio is preparing for its new leap.

90 years ago, commercial radio as we know it now was born. It was in 1920 in Pittsburg, United States, when an engineer who worked at Westinghouse, Frank Conrad, designed and built a receiver capable of easily reproducing local signals, and later set up the first radio station in his private home. Commercial radio was born. In fact Conrad was the first to use the word broadcasting, used until then in agriculture to define the method of spreading seeds.

Until then, radio was a means of point-to-point communication, which facilitated communication between two people, as did the personnel on board ships that crossed the world. With the initiative that was born in Pittsburg, the radio became a mass medium.

COnrad first only spoke and spoke through his transmitter; Then came the music played on a jukebox and later the requests of the first listeners. A medium and a business model was being built that would spread throughout the world from then on. A model in which the equipment and signal transmission were sold together, as happened here in Spain with the SER until well into the 20th century.

Today, commercial radio, the one we know in different formats (spoken, formula, musical,...) is preparing for its new leap. Radio StreamingYou have to find a business model for a world that has become smaller. A world in which the user increasingly appreciates the value of the local and the personal – see what is happening with social networks – and in which the radio can provide that care that it has always had for what is closest.

Radio is about to break its limitations and soon licenses will only be reminiscences of the past. Therefore, as Frank Conrad did in 1920, we must innovate and find a way for broadcasting to not only transfer listeners to new channels – streaming, podcasts and downloads – but also transfer revenue and advertisers. I'm sure we'll get it...

José María García-Lastra

Director of Content Management at Union Radio and blog author Audio more Visual

Radio 2.0 Conference: business opportunities for radio on multiplatform

Organized by Actuonda together with Audioemotion, and with Panorama Audiovisual as a specialized medium, next Tuesday, October 5, a conference will take place in the ETSIT Assembly Hall at the Polytechnic University of Madrid under the title “Radio 2.0: business opportunities for radio on multiplatform” will analyze the current situation and future perspectives of radio in a cross-media environment.

More information here