Vancouver Island 2009: Keith Hopper / Broadcasting Change

Broadcasting Change

Keith Hopper

Today's technology is changing dramatically right before our eyes. The future of the media and the work behind the scenes is changing. Whether or not it is changing for the better remains to be seen.

The media is starting to go on-line. Internet radio is beginning to become a tradition in the present. In ten or twenty years time, I believe that the entire spectrum of live radio will be on-line and the transistor radio will become extinct. The future of radio is not in the air but the technology is definitely moving forward.

Even the technologies behind the scenes are changing dramatically. Jobs in the radio field are becoming more and more rare; now, the bare minimum is all that the radio station really needs. In the future, personnel will not change that much, but the minimum standards for personnel will be in place. It really doesn't matter what size of market one looks at. A large market like Vancouver or a small market like Nanaimo or Parksville will both use limited personnel.

The television business will be much the same. At present, they are running on the barest of necessities for personnel. I believe that nothing will change in the future; jobs will be at a real premium, especially for up-and-coming journalists and broadcasters like me. The wave of new technology in the television industry is also moving at a rapid rate toward the future. The web-sites of the major broadcasters such as CNN, CBC, BCTV, and TSN are all offering on-line information and services. Even the small market franchises such as Shaw and Rogers are competing with the bigger markets. In the future, the television industry will be the same as radio. The bulk of the live information sessions will be on-line and the existence of the television as it is today will be in jeopardy.

Interviews and taped sessions for radio and television have felt the most impact in the broadcasting industry. The addition of video conferencing and other on-line features have been felt by the consumer so much so that the wave of the future has been advertised already.

Predicting the future of the broadcasting industry is very difficult, if not impossible, When we really think about it, we are actually in a transition period in which the future technologies can be a little easier to predict. All we can say is that the technology is going forward.

Has the world accepted this impact? Some people have prepared for this change by investing their time, energy and maybe some of their income into the future. Most people, however, have not. They have tried to survive with the technologies of the past and now with so many changes, those people have found themselves desperately trying to catch up with newer digital technologies like the internet.

I don't know whether or not I am proud about saying this, but I was one of those people. This course has been very beneficial to me and has made me realize that the world cannot survive on the primitive technologies of the past. In the future, the people who are now behind me are going to be in a predicament because there is a lot to learn about the ever-changing technologies that the world is being asked to accommodate.