3rd RTF Blog Post-Radio & Audience Demand

     There are many factors and forces that influenced the progression of the radio industry, but the most influential is audience demand. Audience demand is so important because it was and is ultimately essential for the formation and survival of radio, even though the demand for it has gone down over the years. The media and radio cannot survive if they have no one to listen to them. When audiences listen to the radio, they show the creators and producers of the media/radio what they want or don't want and what they like or don't like and the radio has to adapt to what listeners want.
    
     In the 1920s, radio was the main source of entertainment. It was where the people got their news, music, and other varieties of radio shows. Once radio entertainment was up and running for a while, people began to realize what they liked about radio and what they wanted from it. It was of course a sense of entertainment, but could also bring families together to listen to the news or their favorite show as a family. But when television was created and began to sweep the nation in the 60s, radio seemed to somewhat fizzle out in the news and variety show department, bringing radio's focus to mainly music with some news. Since TV was created, the main function of radio and reason people listen has been for music. Now most people only listen to radio for the purpose of music, if they even still listen. Many people use the internet as their source of music such as iTunes or other legal music download sites, and then listen to their iPods or MP3s in their car. But most people listen to the radio solely for music and it is rarely heard or listened to anywhere else but the car. So even though audience demand is highly important for radio to survive, the demand for it has dropped dramatically because of new advances in technology.