Living in the transitional age from old to new, we are now facing a world that changes rapidly. The extensive use of multimedia computers, the rapid development of information superhighways and the further probe into DAB and DVB present a new and enticing century before us. Put in such a situation full of new technology and new concepts, what shall we do? What shall our music stations do? How to meet the challenges and keep pace with the time? This is rather a thought-provoking question presented before us? Here I would like to take this opportunity to put forward my point of view on how to develop the music stations, which generally boils down to the following four aspects. That is: multidimension in format, specialization in programming, automation in editing and broadcasting, and digitalization in manufacturing.
Trend 1: Multidimension in Format
When we suggest that we should make headway towards developing the music stations as multidimensional in format, it is based on the following facts. In our country nowadays, though most music stations spring up are comprehensive in content, they are almost following the same pattern. Their programs are either meldings of news and music or blendings of classic music and pop music. Diverse the programs seem to be, they are monotonous in format.
The advantage of such a music station is that it attends to every aspect and every listener. Whoever you are, you can possibly listen to the programs you like. That is why in these two years, "Radio Music" has been spring up like mushrooms and are welcome by the local listeners. But at the same time the disadvantage is quite obvious, e.i., lack of its own characteristics and features and cannot satisfy the listeners to the greatest extent. If we broadcast too much pop music the middle-aged and the elders will show their objections, and yet frequent broadcasting of classic music is against the will of young men. They consider it to be out-of-date. Besides sponsors are also reluctant to support it. I suppose these contradictions and complaints are rather common to every music station, and though we have been trying hard to solve such problems, we fail time and now. I think the simplest way to thoroughly solve them is division. That is, to open some specific music channels according to different types of listeners. For example, open a classic music channel for classic music lovers, and a pop music one for listeners in favor of pop music, turning a comprehensive music station into a specialized one. Along with the economic development, people's demand for recreation is also increasing. Last year saw the division of Radio Shanghai Music Station into two, one for pop music and one for classic music. This reform has been accepted and welcome by both listeners and professionals in broadcasting domain. I am sure that such tendency will become more obvious in the future.
One thing I have to point out here is that we have no intention to comment on any format and we do not mean to encourage you to open "specialized music station" especially when you are in short of channels resources. I only want to mention the tendency that might arise when the comprehensive music stations cannot meet the listener's demand.
The possible emergence of multidimensional format is inevitably the result of intense competition in the broadcasting market. Because if a music station wants to stand firmly in the local broadcasting market, it will probably take the following two strategies. One is to make the station bigger and open up the listening market outwardly by intensively setting up diverse music programs. The other strategy is to attract listeners by appealing to their tastes and giving prominence to distinct features. The common way is to make use of automatic system to broadcast disc programs.
In cities at present, the competition of "Series of Radios" is becoming white-hot. So it is rather important to have its own characteristics and a large number of regular listeners if you want to stand undefeated in that competition. Up to now, no one can dominate the market. If you can hold on to any particular group, then you can hold a position in that market. That is just the inner motive to possibly develop music station as multidimensional in format. If you want to appeal to middle-aged and the old listeners, open "classic" music station. If you intend to attract teenager and juvenile listeners, then select pop and rock'n'roll music for them. Sometimes you even have to think of arranging some news programs for those between 24-35.
This phenomenon is also very evident among the music stations abroad. In terms of ways of editing and broadcasting. there are classic music stations supported by the government, and pop music stations broadcasting news and music programs spontaneously, rock'n'roll music stations run by discs and a very few hosts, and community music stations broadcasted entirely automatically. In terms of listeners, there are stations for people ranging from juveniles to the middle-aged and the old people, including both highbrows and ordinary people and certainly some others.
Trend 2: Specialization in Programming
Program specialization is the new demand the time has on the music broadcasting. In this age of high technology and advanced information system, though listening to the music over the radio is still the major source of enjoying music, it may not be the best one. People today have too many choices. CD, VCD, MTV and TV music programs are rather popular and have already become the major channels of appreciating music, not to say some other strong rivals which have appeared or are going to appear. Firstly the cable stereophonic broadcasting, whose quality and convenience can be equally matched with broadcasting, has entered the family life. Secondly, the satellite music broadcasting will become a "supplementary choice" of appreciation as a result of the rapid development of cable TV. Another stronger rival may be the multimedia computer. Not long before I was invited to attend the "North Europe 21th International Music Conference" held in Denmark, and was told in that conference that European Common Market had invested huge sum of money to establish MODE international music network. After its establishment in fall of 1997,
every user can get music information all over the world from the net and listen to the music in the quality that is not worse than CD's. He or she can has his or her music pieces published in the net freely and can buy what he or she needs from the net. This, to music lovers, is undoubtedly enchanting. Under such circumstance, why should people listen to the music station? To be more specific, what are the advantages of radio music?
I think the most important thing is the program specialization.
Talking from a large scale, program specialization is what listeners call for. If a music station wants to win the listeners, it should give its full play to its special features. Music is the true dominance of the radio. Though music broadcasted over the cable TV is competitive in hardware with the music station, it is the sideline of cable TV and it cannot match itself with the radio station in "software". The sound and visual effects over TV music channels are excellent, and yet it costs much and it does not have the convenience the radio has. For example, people can not enjoy MTV while walking. As to enjoying the music
over the multimedia computer, though enticing, it is nevertheless far from being popular. So turning to the radio for music will still be the most basic choice for listeners in the future. Given more opportunities and wider choices, the rate of not listening to the radio will naturally go up if the programs on radios are presented without features and professional arts.
Secondly, speaking from a small scale, program specializations is also the demand the radio station has on hosts.
The success or failure of a program mainly depends on the way the host does with the program. Currently, the hosts for radio station in our country can be roughly classified into four types. The first type is the capable hosts who have received professional training and are able to attract listeners. The second are those who are professionally trained in editing but later change to be hosts. The third type are the hosts who are not professionally trained but have the professional capacity and attractions. The last type are those who begin their career as announcers and act as hosts by just reading from the editors' scripts. Among the four types, the second and third ones are the most common. More often than not, they stand for two different
types of music programs. Hosts of the second types are likely to make the programs more rigorous and conform to standard, while those of the third types present them in a more relaxed way. The former are professional in editing yet amateur in hosting, whereas the latter are professional in hosting and amateur in editing. What we need most is the hosts of the first type. That is, the idol-like professional hosts who can explain certain music phenomena as musical authorities? These people are the basic guarantee of successful specialization programs. Whether we can train these hosts successfully or not exerts great influence on
the program itself. Because the reason listeners turn to the radio is that they want to listen to the hosts' suggestions and comments on music with their charming voices. Otherwise, why not turn to special music channels on CD and cable TV? Whatever the formats of the music stations are like, the demand for hosts is the same. And only when such hosts become successful and gain popular acceptance in the radio station can program specialization not become an empty saying.
Trend 3: Editing and broadcasting Automation
Concerning the editing and broadcasting automation, our country is lagging behind. To many advanced countries and regions, this automation has already become a fact, and yet to us it is still a trend. In the following, I would like to talk about its development from the perspective of our country.
0At present, editing and broadcasting automation in our country is at its preliminary stage and it is confined to "broadcasting automation" only. Nanjing Radio Music, Guangzhou and Guangdong Radio Station are among the earliest in our country. Last April, Nanjing Radio Music Station took the lead in jointly developing an automatic broadcasting system mainly controlled by computer with the help of Anhui Modern TV Technical Research institute and JVC, and put into use successfully soon afterwards. The hardware of this system is mainly composed of computer, sound console, JVCCDDA automatic changer, matrix switch machine and hard
disc recorder, and it adopts a very beautiful and clear Chinese interface. "It is durable, secure and easy to operate and learn. Its emergence fills the gap in the automatic broadcasting domain." (Refer to "CDDA Automatic Changer System applied in Automatic Broadcasting System of Nanjing Radio Broadcasting Station" by Li Daohang published in Issues 2-3 of 1996's Radio Broadcasting and TV and Manufacturing) This system was well received by the representatives of "National Automatic Broadcasting System Exhibition" held in Nanjing at the end of this May. This activity to some extent quickened the process of national automation of broadcasting system.
The research of broadcasting automation originates from Guangzhou. Its birth and development is closely related with the reality that the music station has to broadcast its programs 24 hours successively.
In recent two years, with the rise of music stations and growing intense competition, a lot of city radio stations, big or small, begin to "get into the international track", and broadcast the programs for 24 hours running. But how to deal with the programs at night? Arrange "heart-to-heart talk" program, or to create its own features of being a music station? Apparently most broadcasting stations prefer to be the latter. Once you choose it, the automatic broadcasting system lured doubly. The fact is that the stations which first use this system are principally those which run the programs 24 hours successively.
So nowadays more and more radio stations are considering beginning 24 hour service as this concept is becoming popular and begin to take root in people's heart. Once they think it mature to begin, more and more radio stations will automatically broadcast their programs.
Perhaps this is the condition in China. We have to act according to our own reality. Actually what we are doing now fails to agree with Mr. Bammens, who is from Dutch Broadcasting Advisory Company and suggests that radio automation should begin with its administration (Refer to Issues 8-9 of 1995's Radio Broadcasting and TV and Manufacturing) In China, it is no doubt that the process of automation will begin with the broadcasting automation, based on which comes editing computerization, and finally it will develop the automation of whole system. At present many radio station have started to make some attempts. The extensive use of the visual non-linear editing system and the automatic broadcasting system in various city music stations also provides a strong proof for adopting editing and broadcasting automation in music stations.
Trend 4: Digitalization in Manufacturing
Along with the rapid development of numeral recording technology, digitalization production of musical programs will not only become a possibility but also a necessity by the end of this century.
As far as current music stations in our countries are concerned, most are newly built and are willing to invest money on live broadcasting equipment. Stations with better conditions are at least equipped with DAT, which is on one hand the demand of the programming, and on the other hand, it is because of its price. The price of a traditional open reel recorder is not cheaper than DAT. That is why people, while selecting broadcasting system will naturally choose the DAT of higher fidelity instead of an open reel one. Accordingly, for the sake of broadcasting, people will firstly select cheap but fine DAT as their main recording
machine. Though the tapes of DAT have their own drawbacks, DAT is still the best carrier for numeral sound frequency in terms of price, quality and preservation of master tapes. So up to now, to record and broadcast music programs by using DAT has become a standard way of selection in our country.
Secondly, speaking from the experience of foreign countries, mimic audio recording methods of traditional open reel recorders have been on the verge of being discarded, and are giving way to the new and cheap numeral audio frequency recording methods. In many countries, open reel recorders are near extinction. Instead DAW, MD, DIGICART, ADAT and such new recording methods are widely adopted.
DAW, especially the DAW with the double-sound tracks, is currently the most economical and practical machine when producing at a small scale. Its components are mainly computer, acoustic accessories inserted into the computer and stereophonic editing software. The cost is cheap, complementary with DAT and can process the musical material profoundly. If the advantages of DAT lies in its audio recording, then the attraction of DAW lies in its
visual-frequency non-linear editing of sound signals without any damage. DAW can be used not only as a manufacturing machine, but also it can used in live broadcasting. It has a very broad future for application and hopefully it can be developed and used in domestic music stations as numeral recording systems in the following years. Before more advanced recording systems like ADAT, multisound DAW, and recording mixture machines enter our music stations, DAW and DAT will be the basic trend in digitalization manufacturing.