A Cultural Case History by Tim Crook Page Six Click here for previous page Radio as a source of communication has never lost its importance and value. Radio storytelling is in a continual state of creative flux with the invention of new form and content. I think a common story in most cultures is that the development of television offered fame and financial reward for the creative intelligentsia. The stampede from radio to television was often driven by market forces, but television's status as the pre-eminent media form is under threat from Multimedia. Audiences have now been empowered with visual, text and sound interactivity and radio drama sits much more comfortably than film or television in this environment.
Radio is much more efficient as a medium of communication.
Its audience can continue to physically move and perform transport, recreational and employment tasks. Unlike the visual media radio can laterally shift across the range of human activities as a direct source of media consumption. The mind's eye is a continually playing movie for the imagination while text, video, film and still pictures are scanned stereoscopically in the physical dimension. Experimental one and two minute radio plays can now be accessed on an American web site. Britain's Independent Radio Drama Productions has introduced full length Internet Plays of the Month.