Promising Predictions

Beth Knobel:

• The future of audio reporting is all about the content. Radio not only provides great reporting, but it's also a valuable editorial voice that helps listeners makes sense of the barrage of information that is raining down on us all these days.
• Radio stations will continue to exist, but they will distribute their programming digitally, and use the money they now spend on over-the-air broadcasting on content creation instead.
• The stodgy image of radio is changing, as radio stations use social media and other communication technologies to engage their audiences.
• Radio stations are already moving aggressively into social media. Part of that effort includes obvious things like Twitter feeds and Facebook pages. But that's all going to expand even more, as stations benefit from new, innovative ways to send and receive information.
  

Imagine that you're on the bus going to work. As you pass a particular building, your phone asks you if you'd like to hear a radio story about an event that happened there.

Then you get a text on your phone from a different station asking you to write back if you're stuck in traffic. The station uses the information to create a real-time traffic map on its website.

Then a Twitter message asks, since it's the 8th day of the month, for you to vote on which of three composers' 8th symphonies you'd like to hear at lunchtime on the local classical music station.

This is the future of radio.