Over Christmas, demand for Internet radio streaming must be significantly higher than during other times. Like every year, some of the stations in my favorite list started to get a hick-up on the 23rd of December. This made me wonder what people would say if FM radio today if it had been invented after Internet radio streaming and not long before?
For sure people would say that it's a great idea because it fixes the capacity problem as there is no limit to the number of people who can listen simultaneously. Which is pretty much the only advantage from an everyday perspective, until power fails and the Internet connection drops dead, but an interesting one around Christmas.
But then the number of stations at a location is very limited compared to the thousands of web radio streams one can receive, there are different stations when one is on vacation, they might not play the music one wants to hear, too much talking, too much advertisement, etc. So if we were all used to Internet radio, would a newly invented FM radio actually have a chance if it had to start from scratch?
Broadcast TV and radio is so elegant, but as you say, limiting in terms of content.TV and radio over the internet is such an inefficient use capacity, but the market doesn’t care. As capacity becomes cheaper it becomes less of a problem. I’d like to think there will always be a place for true (live) broadcast. I often watch programmes on TV of which I have recordings – there’s something about live TV. But from scratch? That’s a tough one.