Reception Platforms
A reception platform is basically how we are able to receive
and listen to radio; we wouldn’t be able to listen to radio at all if there was
no reception platform. There are many reception platforms available, from
listening to radio in your car to streaming online.
One reception platform is terrestrial reception. To be able
to receive radio signals we need some form of aerial, usually a TV aerial,
which will pick up the signal and will then convert the signal to audio through
a stereo, that stereo can be basically anywhere, in a car or at home.
Satellite reception is where a radio signal is sent to a satellite
which is in space, then in turn sends the same signal to every home who has a
subscription and the satellite dish to receive the signal. You cannot receive the
signal if you don’t have a subscription or the dish. The most popular in the UK
is the company SKY which UK residents have to pay monthly for the subscription,
and usually a member from SKY will then come to the house and set up the
satellite dish. However sky is not the only satellite broadcasting company,
there are others which receive foreign channels.
Streaming is a rather new reception platform that allows the
audience to listen to something which is being broadcasted live in real time.
You don’t need to download any files in order to stream something; you stream it
straight from the site it is coming from. This makes it hard for someone to
save the content from the stream and distribute it illegally, as you are not
downloading any files. However a fall back of streaming is that if someone
doesn’t have a high or fast enough quality internet connection, it could make
the connection to the stream slow and may often need to stop and ‘buffer’
(basically have to wait to catch up to the stream).
On demand radio is basically where a radio station records
what they play or produce, then upload to a website where he audience can then
go to the site and listen to the recorded radio broadcast whenever they want.
So the broadcast isn’t live, or showed at a particular time, instead the
audience has the control of when they want to listen. Now it’s available for
the audience to listen wherever they want as well, they can listen to it on
their phone or laptop, at home or out and about. On demand basically gives the
audience full control of when and where they wish to listen.
Over the recent years radio has changed in many ways. People
now have control as to when they want to listen, they don’t have to tune in at
a certain time, if they miss something they wanted to listen too, then can
check if its on demand. Now you can listen to the radio over the laptop or
computer, even mobile phones can access the radio without a problem.