Radio, radio ... and convergence

To start with, full disclosure: Equal Access, the organization for which Natasha works, is an old partner of the organization for which I work, Ideosync. Together, we were responsible for some of the early experimentation with using DTH satellite radio in Nepal and the Indian state of Uttarakhand (as well as Afganistan and Cambodia),  to engage with communities in the early 2000s; an experiment that eventually fed into the community radio policy advocacy and capacity building work that Ideosync has been working on since in India. Our joint belief in radio emanates from the on-ground experience of seeing how poor communities in media-dark scenarios engaged with radio, enthusiastically participated in it, and made it their own. But my agreement with the points she makes is not rooted just in our partnership, or in a shared passion for radio as a medium.

It may be a little obvious to say this, but I cannot emphasize how little we appreciate the basic advantages that go with radio as a medium: Among all the ICT4D and C4SC technologies available today, radio continues to be -

a. the only medium that allows communities to continue working while listening, without impacting their livelihoods or chores;

c. one of the few media that transcend literacy barriers, being excusively voice based;

b. the cheapest medium of mass communication to roll out AND listen to: Setting up simple studios and community broadcast stations is typically a low cost process, and the average listener can purchase a standalone listening device for 1 US Dollar or less (or if they have mobile phones, simply listen to FM on their mobile phones); and

c. with reference the state and commercial radio broadcasting infrastructures in most developing countries, radio remains (as Natasha notes) the most ubiquitously available medium across many of these nations, since the infrastructure does not require overlarge investments, and has often been set up over the last several decades already.

For these very reasons, other - often newer - technologies, whether TV, mobile or internet based, have not had as deep a penetration or acceptance among the truly marginalized communities as radio. TV requires dedicated watching time, and a suspension of other activities for immersion - not to mention large upfront costs for the device. So does the internet, where it is available: Only 2% of India has access to broadband internet of even 2 MBps, so its very availability in many parts of the world is in question. Mobile telephony based services, while sharing the pure-audio accessibility of radio, still faces fairly high entry barriers in terms of devices and telecom subscriptions - the supposedly runaway success story of mobile telecom in South Asia is more hyped than one would imagine, especially where the genuinely marginalized communities are concerned. Radio, as we have seen, ticks all these boxes quite effectively.

Interestingly, however, radio-based interventions have been successful in leveraging these technologies - mobile telephony, IVRS, and (in some cases) the internet - in a fairly symbiotic way, expanding an essentially one way broadcast process into a two way exchange, especially where the broadcasts are developed, managed and run by communities themselves. This is a feather in radio's cap, in that it has been an enabler for the other technologies in a variety of scenarios. This only underpins its continued viability and utility.

But there is one important caveat that I would like to place here: Tradiitional broadcasting per se, in the sense of a pre-set schedule of content, announced in advance, is undergoing a change. The advent of the internet and mobile telephony, social media based distribution and differential data pricing (peak charges and off-peak charges) has meant the consumption of content has increasingly moved to an on-demand model in media rich environments. This is a phenomenon that will eventually make it was to the ICT4D radio scenario as well, because (however slowly) the mobile phone and mobile data penetration are only going to increase over time. So it may increasingly become important to distinguish between listening to audio content (which can be distributed over other technological processes - bluetooth delivery, internet delivery, sideloading onto memory cards) and broadcast radio. Broadcast radio will still have its place in the sun for a long time, for the reasons noted above, as it goes forward - but will need to also make its content available over other dissemination methodologies (streaming audio, viral bluetooth exchange, and so on) in order to make the best of its advantages. Audio content will develop an independent life outside the broadcast model. 

On a parallel note, for a longer piece in which I examine the process of technology or dissemination medium related decision making in the C4SC world - in which I also quote Tony Roberts' excellent article on the matter - see this: bit.ly/2b4A8wl