Welcome to 'Transmitting to Earth'. I'm Charssun and I'll be your host. This blog and podcast is a byproduct of VoyagerRadio.com and is intended to provide the most timely information about this Internet radio station. It is also intended to be a fun and accessible electronic journal with commentary focusing on Internet radio, podcasting and webcasting issues and technologies, music, and some of my other interests. I also offer personal perspective about being an Internet radio broadcaster (and podcaster).
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In the early part of the twentieth century, a new medium was developing, one that would eventually be called Radio. It took awhile for it to catch on; most people couldn't afford the equipment necessary to "tune in" to this new form of communication. Some folks were lucky enough to have a friend who would share the equipment needed to listen to the radio transmissions; others worked at a business which owned a receiver.
The folks who were lucky enough to listen were curious about this new medium; many more were awed and transformed by their listening experience. Certainly everyone was interested in the new medium once they had heard it or heard of it. A few astute individuals began to regularly transmit news, music, entertainment, and other forms of communication using this technology, and they called their new craft "broadcasting", a term borrowed from an agricultural term meaning "to cast (seeds) widely". Yet the medium, being so young, was not accessible by all, so the medium found itself with a relatively small, yet rapidly growing audience. Still they persisted, taking pleasure in broadcasting to as few as one listener at a time. Some found pleasure in things like searching for broadcasts that originated from far parts of the world. A resident of Salinas, California, was able to hear a transmission which had originated in Australia or New Zealand. After a few years, the price of receivers came down, and more and more listeners were listening to radio. Radio became mainstream, and soon commercial interests transformed radio into a means of advertising. Today, it is illegal to broadcast to far distances from one's home. Nearly 100 years later, we are in a strikingly similiar situation. We have this new medium, and thousands of people are interested in broadcasting from their own homes. Commercial interests want to take this means of communication away from the people and place it in the hands of industry--mainly, advertising, for the recording industry's ultimate goal is to make money, and where else will they collect it but from advertisers? The royalties they demand are unrealistic and will only serve to shut down independent Internet Radio broadcasters, leaving room only for those who can afford the heavy levies, such as corporations, to fill consumers' demands for Internet Radio broadcasts. If these corporations find they cannot collect enough money from consumers to pay for these broadcasts, which is likely the case if the Internet Radio broadcasting model follows the traditional Radio broadcasting model, they will turn to advertisers. Internet Radio, in turn, will be controlled by advertisers, and the result will be much the same as traditional Radio's situation. Consumers will be disappointed, having realized the missed opportunity for a diverse range of independent webcasts that they have been deprived of due to commercial interests' efforts. Does the future sound bleak? Well, there's hope yet, and if you want to discuss this issue, join my discussion group.
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Besides this blog, a narrative blog called something that happened, and various other projects, I also moderate a discussion forum: Please consider subscribing to engage in a dialogue about all things having to do with Internet radio! |
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Harold J. JohnsonVoyagerRadio
547 Gayley Avenue #1
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Download the Podcast
We are officially podcasters now that we have revitalized and reintroduced our downtempo show Tempo of the Down, this time around as a podcast. Now showcasing independent downtempo we've been granted permission to offer for download, Tempo of the Down is our entry into the future of Internet radio.
Head over to our new Podcast area to download the latest session!
