About two thousand of these broadcast from the United States, but you can also hear Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Tanzanian broadcasts. Radio Mostar and Radio Slon stream in live from Bosnia. Click on RSI in Singapore and you can choose live programming in English, Tamil, Malay, Mandarin, or Japanese. Click on All India Radio and music from Bollywood surges through your speakers. What you hear is local radio, not the propaganda broadcasts that governments send out over shortwave.
Radio is cheap to produce.
The Internet is cheap too. For very little incremental cost any local station can suddenly reach a global audience. Indeed, that's what came about as TV spread around the world, doing its best to create a global American suburb. But there is something delightful about hearing what interests local people in far-flung places. T HE digital revolution has another gift to offer radio.