Starfall

"I am become death, destroyer of worlds..." -Robert J Oppenheimer (Quoting the Baghavad Gita)

Death of a giant:

A question arose in class the other day: Did Video kill the Radio Star?

The background to this question was a lecture about the rise of MTV and the music video, and the decline in the use of radio. This decline came about, one may argue, because of the rise in popularity of the music video. With the growing popularity of the music video, teens turned to television instead of radio to get their music fix.

But did was the Radio Star actually killed? One may argue that while radio usage went down, the industry is still there and growing. While people may not listen to radio in their homes, a large portion of the population listens to radio in their cars. Overall radio usage is actually higher than most people might expect (84.8% according to one source).

Not dead yet?

While it is important to realize that radio has not disappeared, it must also be realized that radio does not hold the position it once had. For example, how many people do you know who have a radio in their home? (internet radio excluded...)

When you consider the way that radio is used today - especially when compared to television - it becomes clear that the Radio Star is, indeed... dead. People (especially young music lovers) turn to television and the internet when seeking new music; the radio is left out of the equation.

New life...

However, while the Star may have died, it left behind it an audience that enabled the Supernova of the internet to come into being. And because of this, we can say that radio may have died, but it went out in a blaze of glory...