Radio is a sightless or viewless medium. It is also called blind medium as the performer doesn’t see his audience and the listeners cannot see the performer.
A Medium of Sound: It is an auditory medium, a medium of the sound. The 3 elements of a radio broadcast are the spoken words, Music and Sound effects. Sounds must be pleasant, simple, easy to understand for the listeners.
A Medium of the Voice: Radio is the medium of the voice. The procedure mixes his/her voice with music and sound effects. A radio listener has a highly developed ear and so the broadcaster shouldn’t sound fake or untruthful. A truthful vocal expression wills commonly touch if the whole person’s mind, soul, psyche, imagination and his body are all in the tune with one another.
A Link between Speaker and Listeners: Microphone is the only instrument through which a radio broadcaster speaks to his listeners. It is a hi-fi instrument that catches the safest sigh, the finest rustle of the people. It exposes all vocalist, and tells all, the truth from alive.
An Intimate Medium: A broadcaster must imagine as if the listeners, are listening from the sound box or the transistor. The best subjects for radio broadcast are those which intimately concern the listeners. The words and the manner of their expression must be intimate as the conditions in which broadcasts are received are very informal.
A Mass Medium: Radio is a medium of mass communication. It broadcast reach hundreds and thousands in one go. The task of the performer is to find out the lowest common denominator to communicate well with the largest number of listeners. It is a much cheaper medium of mass communication. Thus, it is very relevant to developing countries like India.
Simple Language: Large number of people are illiterate or semiliterate in India and other developing countries. So, the language of the radio broadcasts must be simple and should be closer to the spoken language that the common people use.
A Mobile Medium: Radio is a mobile medium, and so it is a most convenient medium for anybody. It doesn’t respect unites of time, place and action.
A Cheap and Quick Medium: It is a medium of the “here and now” as it can respect the events almost instantly. Radio is a much cheaper and quicker medium than TV for production of programmes thus it can produce a wide variety of programmes.
No shared experience: Radio listeners are sitting alone or with one or two members of the family, and not like the stage where spectators are sitting in a crowd. Thus the psychology of reception for a radio broadcast is much more informal. The radio listener will not accept any informal. The radio listener will not accept any untruth in a radio performance nor does he see any glamour personality to be impressed.
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