Technological developments in Radio and News Jasmin, Leanne and Emily

Digital Radio What is digital radio? Radio broadcasting using digital technology, using a digital signal transmitter. It is a new form of radio, replacing analog frequencies. When a digital radio signal is lost, the whole signal is stopped and the station may pause. However, digital radio is easier to use than analog. Digital is often shortened to DAB. When was the first digital broadcast? In 1894, Sir Oliver Lodge sent his first message using radio waves in Oxford. Click to add text

Analog Radio What is analog radio? Analog radio is another method of broadcasting, consisting of a large transmitter antenna. It adds to radio waves called carrier to broadcast. Another way of sending the radio signal is to make the peaks of the carrier wave bigger or smaller. When was the first analog broadcast? Christmas Eve, 1906 by Reginald Fessenden (disputed). Who invented it? Nikola Tesla from Serbia and Guglielmo Marconi from Italy.

Pirate Radio What is pirate radio? Pirate radio is illegal broadcasting, commonly done from boats as here the owners did not have to pay tax for owning the station. They were very popular in the 1960’s and 80’s. Now there are around 150 pirate radio stations in the UK. What was the first popular pirate radio station? Radio Caroline, launched by an Irish music entrepreneur named Ronan O’Rahilly. They started broadcasting off the Essex coast in What were some popular pirate radio stations? Shot!, Screaming Lord Sutch, One-Derful.

First Ever News Report on Radio When was the first ever radio news report? The first ever news report broadcasted on the radio was in roughly There were no major headlines within this, nothing particularly relevant today; this would be because at the time, these news reports would be basic, and most likely bias so not relevant to today, and information was harder to accurately get to other people, and sources were much harder to access than they are today. How have radio broadcasts changed? Of course, today, information is a lot more accurate. It is much easier to access reliable and relevant sources, so news reports are a lot more trustworthy to hear. We also now hear news reports on radio stations very regularly, the schedule not usually pausing. This is because information can be delivered in seconds, and is much easier to receive and broadcast than is was almost 100 years ago.

References and Evaluation Finding all this information was slightly hard because the news through radio was never the most popular way of finding out news an never has been. This means not all was recorded in history when specific milestones were reached, only things which stood out were written about in detail, for example, the first ever digital radio broadcast was written about in detail and easy to find, whereas the first ever radio news broadcast was not. Any information specifially about news broadcasts was usually lost within milestones in radio that seemed more important.

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