Radio serves as both a profit-making business and a public service. This dual nature often produces conflicts and results in issues about news reporting accuracy, objective presentation of political and social views, and truthful commentary.
The radio industry provides employment for a variety of workers. Departments within radio stations include administration, front office, operations/programming, on-air staff and production, sales and marketing, and engineering.
Throughout its history, radio has had to compete fiercely with emerging and evolving communication technologies, including television, computers, and the Internet. To stay competitive in today's market, radio has spawned several innovative concepts, including satellite radio, streaming, and Internet radio. Within the last two decades satellite radio has emerged as a popular paid subscription service. For example, entertainment provider SiriusXM, the only satellite provider based in the United States, hosts music, news, sports, and talk shows, as well as broadcasts of local weather and traffic conditions.
Streaming refers to any medium constantly delivered to the end-user either live or on-demand. With radio streaming the audio signal is delivered—not downloaded—to a computer. The number of paid subscriptions to on-demand music services totaled 96.8 million in 2023, nearly a 6 percent increase over the 91.6 million subscriptions in 2022, according to data from the Recording Industry Association of America. Ad-supported music services, such as YouTube, grew by 2 percent from 2022 to 2023, and accounted for about 11 percent of the total recorded music revenues in 2023. These increases indicate strong competition for traditional broadcast radio.
Internet radio, which began in the early 1990s, offers listeners continuous audio streams. Pandora Internet Radio, for instance, provides free personalized selections, allowing listeners to choose music by genre or artist. (Pandora Internet Radio is a subsidiary of SiriusXM; its services continue to be free but it is supported by advertisements.) Similar services include Slacker and Spotify, both offer free versions for music and podcasts. Apple launched iTunes Radio in 2013. Amazon offers a music streaming service as part of its regular Prime membership. In early 2023, about 75 percent of Americans age 12 and older listened to online audio, according to a Pew Research Center report. Many streaming sites are making deals with major record companies to expand their library of music.