The airwaves belong to the web

The internet has been converging old and new technologies for many years now. It started off with the more traditional media first such the news paper as the printed word was easy to place onto a web page.

Then from the mid to end of the 90's came audio, first as downloadable snippets, then with the advent of technologies such as real player, and ISDN streaming audio. I remember one day sitting in the Sentinel's offices hogging most of the buildings bandwidth listening to bbc radio one via real players streaming service, as there was too much building and computer interference for my crumby little radio to get a little signal.

Then in 2000's video started to coming to the net, just like audio, as standalone downloads then with a big push from the flash player streaming video. 

2005 saw a massive evolutionary jump with the birth of YouTube and it's many millions of clips, all powered by a powerful search facility, which has gone on to launch careers, get people in to trouble.

So, what's new? Well nothing in terms of technology, but what's new and impressive is what started 10 years, and is becoming more popular, and more enabling for local communities is the fact that local radio stations and genera specific radio stations are coming to the fore offering a wide range of choice and listening time.

Traditional stations like BBC Radio with it's Radio One, Two and so on, which have pioneered the technology.

Other stations are creeping in, giving people much wider range of music such as Kerrang (nope it's not all heavy metal, and it's got he lovely Kate Lawler in the afternoon) or Absolute Radio 90's 

Locally, we've had Focus radio come and go, and more recently, 6towns radio bringing music, local news and interest to Stoke-on-Trent