Radio for the Win

Every year my communications school splits to play each other in the TV versus radio softball game. We make tee shirts. We yell mean things at each other. And radio always loses. This is because it takes a lot more people to produce a TV show than a radio show, so TV has a bigger, more powerful team; yet, I always play for radio.

Today I learned that Apple announced a new service: AppleMusic. They gave us iTunes and iPods, but on June 30, 2015, Apple is going to change the game once again. In a couple weeks, Apple will launch a worldwide 24/7 live radio station called Beats1. Drake even made a cameo at the Keynote in Cupertino California to announce and show his support of the new service.

Drake

Legendary BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe will takeover the Los Angeles branch of the station, Ebro Darden, the former Vice President of Programming at New York's WQHT Hot 97 will takeover the New York branch, and Julie Adenuga, a relatively new, and increasingly popular voice from the UK will make contributions from London, England.

Ebro Darden, Zane Lowe, and Julie Adenuga

This announcement got me very excited today because I am extremely passionate about radio, and most of the time, I like it a lot more than television production. However, it is not as popular as TV, and there are not as many jobs available because people can work in radio for a very long time. (For example, Howard Stern). A worldwide radio station that operates 24/7 would mean that--if successful--there would hopefully be many jobs available. As a twenty-year-old student, this is something I have to be constantly thinking about. 

AppleMusic and Beats1 could be a big win for radio. A huge win. It's very interesting to watch how radio evolves over time to compete with other forms of media. I think its resilience is the reason I'll always be on team radio at the softball game--even though I know we're probably going to lose.