CHARACTERISTICS OF RADIO

Course Name:

Mass Communication & Journalism

For under graduate student.

Paper No. & Title:

Paper-VI
Introduction to Audio Visual Media

Topic No. & Title:

Unit- 1
Characteristics of Radio

Objectives:
To understand the nature of content on radio.
To know the strengths and limitations of the medium in
clear detail.
To know the reasons behind the evolution of certain nontechnical characteristics of the medium.

Content & Script of the Programme

Introduction
Radio is one of the most important tools of mass
communications. It is a result of several innovations and
discoveries by various scientists across the globe. Many of
the important developments in the radio technology
happened in the last few years of 19th century. The trend
continued in early 20th century and it slowly became a
popular medium for mass communications.

In this lesson we will mainly talk about the characteristics

of radio. We will discuss the features of radio that
distinguish it from other media and give it its own unique
position amidst various other communication media.
Present day mass communication scenario is populated by
various media like print, television, theatre, cinema,
internet, mobile phone etc. In this competitive
environment, each medium stands out for its own unique
qualities and abilities.
We will discuss these qualities in the context of radio in
order to understand it as a communication medium.

Elements
Let us start with understanding the elements that form
any radio programme. The characteristics of these
elements also help to shape the identity of radio medium.
In our day to day interpersonal communications, we rely
heavily on verbal communication. We talk and we use
language to communicate with people around us. We also
communicate with the use of gestures and body language.
So these are the some elements of communication at the
interpersonal level. Similarly the Print medium uses
printed word, photographs, illustrations, elements of
design for communication.

The radio content is made up of four main elements.

These are Voice, Music, Sound Effects and Silence.
Voice is probably heard most of the time. Voice or the
spoken language, that we hear on radio most of the times,
conveys most of the content and meaning to us. The
language used here is slightly different from the written
language used in print. The radio scripts are meant to be
spoken out, so they are written in a more conversational
manner. In fact use of small and simple sentences and
simple vocabulary is a main characteristic of radio
language.
Music provides a mood, a background to the radio
programme. It helps to provide entertainment as well.
Sound effects help to create a visual around the words
narrated to us by the voice. They add a feeling of reality
to the content being presented in radio.
Silences are not heard for very long. In fact, a prolonged
silence might give an impression of a break or malfunction
in broadcast. But little pauses help to form the grammar
of radio.
Basic Characteristics
Certain characteristics of radio are basically because of its
technical make up. These have come out of its technical
properties and limitations. We will start with talking about
these properties first.
Most important and probably most obvious feature of radio
is that it is an audio medium.

Radio is sound. It is a medium based on audio only. All the

elements that go into making of radio programme are
different kinds of audio.
Because its an audio medium, it engages only one sense
of the listener. It is a Single Sense medium.
When one listens to the radio, only the ears are engaged.
So one could be doing something else and still be listening
to radio. Unlike a newspaper or Television, the audience
does not have to suspend all other activity to engage with
the medium. This may be perceived as a drawback and
also as strength.
It is strength because radio can get more audience. It
does not demand undivided attention, so audience could
be driving, cooking, jogging, eating and still be listening to
radio. They dont need to sit down and dedicate
themselves to this activity at a particular point in time. In
fact a lot of people listen to radio only when they are
driving. But this characteristic could also be seen as a
disadvantage because the audience is very likely to get
more engaged in the other activities and pay less
attention to radio broadcast. Which means that the radios
content would not leave the desired impact on the
audience and it would only play in the background.
Though sometimes we do need some medium to just be
present in the background. As audience, we all know that
we do not always want to engage most actively with a
medium. A background medium in itself is a break from
other more demanding media.

The Radio content exists in time. The listener has to

experience it right when it is on air. He does not have the
option to access his choice of content at will. The nature of
radio is such. In other words, radio is transient in nature.
It is different from a medium like printed newspaper in
which one could probably read the headlines in the
morning and go through the details sometime later. In
fact, if you fail to understand something that has been
said or explained during a broadcast, there is no way of
going back to it for reference. Unless, of course if the
radio station schedules a repeat telecast. So radio cannot
be referred back to. One has to listen to it and understand
it as and when it is on air.
This imposes certain checks on the kind of language that
is spoken on radio. It is better to not to use difficult words
which are difficult to pronounce or are not used by a large
number of audience. Similarly use of simple and short
sentences delivered at a moderate pace makes it easier
for the audience to follow it. An unfamiliar word or a
complex sentence will leave the audience perplexed. They
might want to go through it again, but that would not be
possible. If they refer to some other source to understand
it, they will miss out on the ongoing broadcast. We will
discuss the language related properties of radio in further
detail after a short while.
Radio is known for bringing the content in the fastest
possible manner. It has tremendous speed. This is largely
due to the fact that radio operations are much simpler
than those of television and newspaper. In fact, radio
works best in the live situation because of the simple
techniques involved. The reports from remote areas,
scores of cricket match played overseas, results of an
award ceremony or excitement of an ongoing concert, all

can be shared live and immediately with the audience. It

makes radio one of the fastest and most exciting medium.
Even audience response or questions can be shared and
addressed at a faster pace.
Though, in the last few years, television technology has
also been able to provide similar pace and fast delivery of
information to the audience, the radio scores because of
its relative simplicity and low costs. In fact, low cost is one
important feature of radio.
The cost of setting up a radio station is not very high.
Similarly production of radio programme is a relatively
simple and low cost process. You do not need camera,
lights and lots of people to handle them. And like print
media, there is no need to make multiple copies of the
finished product. The receiver can also be bought at a very
low cost and the audience can listen to the content
without paying any fees or subscription. This makes radio
one of the most low cost medium and also a very suitable
medium for various operations and communication
requirements where huge amounts cannot be spent.
Another feature of radio is its portability. Radio sets have
become smaller and smaller in size. They were portable
and carried around in bags or slung from shoulders even a
few decades ago. Then they became smaller and fitted
into our pockets. Now they have got squeezed into our
palms and have become so small that they are sold as a
part of various other gadgets. Now a day you could easily
find a radio of the size of matchbox. And it is not rare to
find a radio set fitted within the body of a mobile phone, a
headphone or even a toy.
The radio broadcast knows no boundaries. Books,
magazines and films can be blocked at boundaries of

states and nations and institutions. But radio cannot be

stopped in this manner. One cant really place a firewall or
administrator to restrict its content. This boundless power
can be used to send messages of enlightenment and joy
to people across the border. One good example is radio
Ceylon, which became very popular with listeners in India
as it was able to provide them their choice of
entertainment.
There is one more feature that emerges out of
understanding all these properties of radio. Radio, in fact
is a very simple medium. The equipment involved in
making a radio programme is very simple to operate. One
person with a tape recorder is a complete outdoor crew for
radio. You need no cameras, lights etc to record for radio
from the location. Radio content once ready does not have
to get through complex and time consuming process of
duplication. There is no need to produce several copies
like in print media. It is ready for broadcast and sharing
with masses as soon as its content is finalised.
Language based characteristics
Now let us discuss some characteristics of radio, which are
largely related to the language used on this medium.
Radio is a spoken medium. The language that it uses has
to be different from the written language used in print
media. As we said earlier that short and simple sentences
are to be used. While selecting words one has to avoid
jargon, slang and tongue twisters. And the language has
to have the quality of being conversational. That makes it
slightly informal but still free from colloquial usages. Let
us not forget that radio is reaching to a vast audience
spread over a huge geographical area. Many of these
people might be illiterate. Radio might be their only source

of information and connection with the outside world. So

we have to keep a heterogeneous audience in mind. The
informality of the spoken language builds an easy
connects with audience. But slang of one locality might be
completely lost on the audience of another area. So we
stick to the simpler version of widely spoken language.
Mixing the tongues can also be a problem. We might
imagine that we are trying to make it more accessible of
the audience, but we actually end up distancing ourselves
form all those people who dont know any one of the two
languages.
Though radio is an audio medium, it is known for its ability
to build images. We could say that the language of radio
helps us to create visuals in our mind. In fact, it is our
own natural tendency to attempt to visualise what we
hear. We would try to think of the image of the person
speaking to us from the radio. Properly scripted content of
radio is going to further assist us create these visuals with
the minds eye. These visuals can be varied. We will
always try and visual the scene in the auditorium, where a
state function is happening or that in a stadium from
where a match is being broadcast live. Appropriate
commentary will help us to organise our thought and
visualise something close to what exists at the scene of
broadcast. In the process the audience also gets more
involved in listening.
What is interesting and what probably makes radio a
powerful medium is that unlike a visual medium, the
visuals here are not limited by the size of the screen. If
supported by appropriate sound effects and right music,
virtually any situation from a space age war to medieval
kings durbar can be created in the listeners mind. And
you do not have to spend a penny on sets, art direction,
special effects and lighting.

The radio cannot accommodate a huge amount of content.

In fact, it has very limited space. Of course, we cannot
forget that radio exists in time and that is why it is a
transient medium. When we say that radio lacks space, we
imply that its ability as a medium to hold or convey
content is quite limited. Let us understand it with this
example. On radio, typically 120 words are spoken per
minute. So a limited amount of content per minute. A ten
minute bulletin would carry words equal to those in two
column news. So the news or any other content would
have to be presented in brief. After all you have a limited
number of minutes in a day. On the other hand there is
practically no limit to the number of pages that can go in a
magazine or a newspaper. This allows them more space
and more flexibility. Radio has to however, present its
content within these space constraints. This could be seen
as a disadvantage of radio. It is important to understand
this feature in order to make better programme for radio.
Though a radio broadcaster speaks to tens of thousands of
people at the same time, he does not treat them as a
group. In fact for the radio listener the experience is of
being addressed personally. That is why radio is more
personal. Broadcaster speaks in a manner as if he were
speaking to a single person. The radio broadcast does not
speak to a group. Rather he speaks to the individual. This
makes the listening experience personal for each
individual member of the audience.
The radio connects with audience in the present and the
communication style is one to one. That is why the
broadcaster does not use the radio as a huge public

address system. The broadcaster actually speaks to one

person.
The radio is selective in presenting the content to the
listener. Radio content has to be presented in a linear
order. This order is decided by the people in the radio
station according to what they think would be liked by
most of the audience. The lack of space that we earlier
talked about also compels these people to limit the
content and to include certain things only. So when the
content reaches us, it has gone through an extensive
process of selection and ordering. The transient nature of
radio makes it necessary to choose and order and it is not
possible for the listener to upset this order for their own
preferences.
Compare this with the newspaper where you can read the
content in an order that you like. The reader may start
with the horoscope and then go to sports page and have a
look at the editorial before reading the front page news.
He may also glance through the head lines, pictures and
bits of news once and then read the news in detail when
more time is available.
The technical qualities of radio have helped us to
formulate a certain grammar for its language. These
properties of the radio are important characteristics of
radio.
Derived Characteristics
These characteristics that I have been talking about also
ensure that radio reaches a large number of people. It is a
low cost medium and it is easy for even a poor person to

own a radio set. He does not have to pay anybody to

receive the content. It is free to air. Though he might have
to spend a little on the batteries. The receiver set is
portable and that makes it very easy to carry it around
and listen. One is not tied by any chords or cables. And
radio broadcast reaches almost 98% of Indias territory.
All these factors ensure a higher reach of radio amongst
the audience. In fact higher reach can be counted as
another characteristic of radio.
All these characteristics and the resultant higher reach
also makes radio more suitable for certain purposes.
One characteristic of radio is that it is very suitable for aid
in distance education. It is not viable to spend much on
educational programming especially when the size of
audience in this case all students enrolled in a particular
course is not very high. Suppose a very specialised
programme of an open university attracts 40 learners. If
these learners are spread in different parts of India, then
reaching out to them through other medium would be very
costly. Television air time is costly and in this case your
will either need one national broadcaster or several
regional or local channels. The cost of printing per copy
come down when u do large scale printing, printing or
copying a limited number of documents proves to be
costly. But Radio does not have these limitations. That is
why radio becomes an important part of distance learning
programmes and it also becomes a default choice in this
kind of a situation. Producing and telecasting an
educational programme on radio is viable even when the
number of students is small and they are spread over a
huge area. Radio is actually a perfect medium to reach out
to a small and stratified audience because of its low cost
and huge coverage area.

This very virtue also makes it a suitable medium for Public

Service Advertising. Though such advertising is extremely
important for society, it does not lead to immediate
returns. In facts the returns accrue to the society in long
run, in the form of a better living environment. But unlike
commercial advertising, it does not aim to justify itself
through revenues. So the purse strings for this category of
advertising are always held tight. The lower costs in
production and broadcast make radio a preferred medium
for public service advertising. Its wider reach and the fact
that the target audience does not have to be literate to
understand the message, makes it even more suitable.
These were some of the main characteristics of radio.
Radio is an important medium of mass communications
and it is a completely audio medium. Its technical make
up gives it certain features while some features are based
on the kind of language that is usually spoken on radio.
These languages related features may also be seen as
certain conventions which have evolved out of decades of
attempts to make radio communication more effective and
enjoyable. These conventions are practiced widely. Some
features have emerged out of technical, economic and
language features and it has become most suitable for
certain requirements.
Hope you enjoyed this lesson and found it useful.
Thank you
FAQs
What are the four main elements of radio?
The radio content is made up of four main elements.
These are Voice, Music, Sound Effects and Silence.

Why is radio known as a single sense medium?

When one listens to the radio, only the ears are engaged.
So one could be doing something else and still be listening
to radio. Unlike a newspaper or Television, the audience
does not have to suspend all other activity to engage with
the medium. It does not demand undivided attention, so
audience could be driving, cooking, jogging, eating and
still be listening to radio. They dont need to sit down and
dedicate themselves to this activity at a particular point in
time. In fact a lot of people listen to radio only when they
are driving. But this characteristic could also be seen as a
disadvantage because the audience is very likely to get
more engaged in the other activities and pay less
attention to radio broadcast. Which means that the radios
content would not leave the desired impact on the
audience and it would only play in the background.
In what different ways is radio a low cost medium?
Low cost is one important feature of radio. The cost of
setting up a radio station is not very high. Similarly
production of radio programme is a relatively simple and
low cost process. You do not need camera, lights and lots
of people to handle them. And like print media, there is no
need to make multiple copies of the finished product. The
receiver can also be bought at a very low cost and the
audience can listen to the content without paying any fees
or subscription.
What is radio a selective medium?
The radio is selective in presenting the content to the
listener. Radio content has to be presented in a linear
order. This order is decided by the people in the radio
station according to what they think would be liked by

most of the audience. The lack of space that we earlier

talked about also compels these people to limit the
content and to include certain things only. So when the
content reaches us, it has gone through an extensive
process of selection and ordering. The transient nature of
radio makes it necessary to choose and order and it is not
possible for the listener to upset this order for their own
preferences.
What kind of approach should a radio broadcaster
ideally have when addressing listeners?
Though a radio broadcaster speaks to tens of thousands of
people at the same time, he does not treat them as a
group. In fact for the radio listener the experience is of
being addressed personally. That is why radio is more
personal. A broadcaster should not address a group. He
should speak as if he is talking to one person.
How much of content can be accommodated on
radio in comparison to other media?
The radio cannot accommodate a huge amount of content.
In fact, it has very limited space. Of course, we cannot
forget that radio exists in time and that is why it is a
transient medium. When we say that radio lacks space, we
imply that its ability as a medium to hold or convey
content is quite limited. Let us understand it with this
example. On radio, typically 120 words are spoken per
minute. So a limited amount of content per minute. A ten
minute bulletin would carry words equal to those in a two
column news.
What makes radio visual?

Though radio is an audio medium, it is known for its ability

to build images. We could say that the language of radio
helps us to create visuals in our mind. In fact, it is our
own natural tendency to attempt to visualise what we
hear. We would try to think of the image of the person
speaking to us from the radio. Properly scripted content of
radio is going to further assist us create these visuals with
the minds eye. These visuals can be varied. We will
always try and visual the scene in the auditorium, where a
state function is happening or that in a stadium from
where a match is being broadcast live. Appropriate
commentary will help us to organise our thought and
visualise something close to what exists at the scene of
broadcast. In the process the audience also gets more
involved in listening.

SUMMARY
The content on the radio medium comprises of voice,
music, sound effects and silence. All programmes on the
radio are made up of these elements.
The radio uses a language which is different from that
used in print media and TV. This is one important factor
which shapes the characteristics of radio.
Certain other characteristics have evolved out of the
technology of radio. Important amongst these features of
radio are its portability, it being an audio medium and low
costs involved. These features also make the radio more
suitable than other media for certain uses.

GLOSSARY
RADIO:
Radio is the transmission of signals by modulation of
electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of
visible light. It is also termed as wireless telegraphy or
telephony.
VOICE
The faculty or power of uttering sounds through the mouth
by the controlled expulsion of air. The human voice
consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal
folds for talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, etc.
Human voice is specifically that part of human sound
production in which the vocal folds (vocal cords) are the
primary sound source.
MUSIC
Music is an art form whose medium is sound. Common
elements of music are pitch, rhythm, tempo, meter,
articulation and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture.
The word derives from Greek mousike (art of the Muses).
SOUND EFFECTS
Any sound, other than music or speech, artificially
reproduced to create an effect in a dramatic presentation,
as the sound of a storm or a creaking door.
SILENCE
Silence is the relative or total lack of audible sound.

SOUND
The sensation produced by stimulation of the organs of
hearing by vibrations transmitted through the air or other
medium. Sound is a travelling wave which is an oscillation
of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas,
composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and
of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation
stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.
BROADCAST
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and/or video
signals which transmit programs to an audience. The
audience may be the general public or a relatively large
sub-audience, such as children or young adults.
PUBLIC SERVICE ADVERTISING
Public service advertising is the use of commercial
advertising techniques for non-commercial purposes.
Typical topics for public service advertising include public
health/public safety issues, emergency preparedness
instructions, natural resources conservation information,
and other topics of broad interest.
BROADCASTER
A broadcasting organization, one responsible for the
production of radio and television programs and/or their
transmission.
ALSO
A presenter, or host (sometimes hostess, in feminine
form), is a person or organization responsible for running
an event.
RADIO CEYLON
Radio Ceylon is the oldest radio station in Asia.
Broadcasting was started on an experimental basis in

Ceylon by the Telegraph Department in 1923, just three

years after the inauguration of broadcasting in Europe.