It changes not only the way radio is transmitted but also the way it is made. Say you want to produce a small report for a radio station, the way people have always written columns for their local newspapers. In the past this was complicated. Five years ago the walls of the control room in any good local public-radio station were covered with segments of tape waiting to be spliced into essays. Now in the same control room there are instead a couple of Gateways or Macs.
Tape is nearly dead.
My daughter and I spent several weeks last year interviewing our neighbors in the Adirondack Mountains, in New York, recording hailstorms and waterfalls, interrogating each other as we climbed high peaks. In the past, when high-quality equipment was expensive and the required skills arcane, there were very few prominent radio producers. But now, at least in theory, the technical obstacles have diminished enough that anyone who loves the sound of the human voice and owns a computer built in the past five years can join the ranks. There are so many stories out there just waiting to be told. If you want to make it sound magnificent, you need the insight of a good writer, and a few technical tricks besides.