The Perspective of Hybrid Radio in the Process of Media Convergence

Digitization and the Internet have enabled traditional radio to gain new formats, new listeners, enrich content and make it available globally. Hybrid radio is the result of digitization and media convergence, enabling the availability of programs and accompanying multimedia content to a larger number of listeners thanks to a combination of FM or DAB+ signals and the Internet. Today, listeners expect a radio station to enable listening to the program non-linearly (on-demand, podcast), they expect to have access to information about weather, traffic conditions, news, and information about a song broadcast in various formats (audio, video, or text) and information about the artist. Also, listeners expect to be able to listen to their favorite radio on the same device, via the same application, even when they are not within the coverage area of the program. From an economic point of view, this is a sustainable, cost-effective system, because most stations, in addition to broadcasting on the FM or DAB+ network, already have a program available online. Also, audience growth increases advertiser interest. Although four and a half billion people have access to the Internet, in this paper I will claim that, thanks to the hybrid model, the future of radio is not exclusively in the online sphere, and that in the coming decades the Internet will be an additional tool for increasing the number of listeners and expanding the commercial market. Article received: May 12, 2022: Article accepted: July 15, 2022; Published online: October 15, 2022; Original scholarly paper