Anyone with a computer can tune in to radio stations from Sydney to San Francisco. This gives us more control over what we listen to, and keeps ex pats up to date, writes Anna Carey
Denise Kelleher is a regular listener to several radio shows. On an average day, she might tune into RTÉ Radio One's Morning Ireland, Today FM's late-night music programme, or concerts on Lyric FM. There's nothing particularly extraordinary about this, of course, apart from the fact that Denise lives not in her native Raheny, but in the middle of Tokyo, and she listens to Morning Ireland at 9pm.
"It's amazing being able to listen to Paddy Clancy telling us what's in that morning's Independent while we look out the window at Mount Fuji," she says. Just a decade ago, listening to RTÉ in Japan would have been all but impossible for the average radio listener. Without access to a satellite service, radio stations could broadcast only as far as their long-wave signals would reach, which wasn't always very far. But live audio broadcasting (known as "streaming") on the internet has changed all that, and now anyone with a computer, an internet connection and some simple software can listen to radio stations from Sydney to San Francisco.
The technology which allows live audio streaming has actually been around for a while, and the first internet-only radio station started in 1993. But it wasn't until the mid 1990s that technology made audio streaming a practical option. RTÉ launched its website on May 24th, 1996, with an online TV broadcast of The Late Late Show.
By the end of 1996, RTÉ was broadcasting very limited live streams and by the 1997 presidential elections it was streaming more and more radio and video content.
"THE SOUND QUALITY wasn't very good in those days," remembers John McMahon, who's now RTÉ Radio One's current affairs editor but who was then working in the station's IT department. "It would stop and start a lot. But it got much better quite quickly."
Almost as soon as they began, RTÉ's online radio services were very popular with Irish expatriates. "As early as 1996 we were getting e-mails from Irish people working at the South Pole saying: 'Thanks for the site, I've been listening to Morning Ireland'," says McMahon. "It was staggering."
Internet radio allows people to enjoy an immediate connection to what's going on at home. "We can read the Irish papers and websites online, but radio is the only way to get the sense of the ebb and flow of what the country is listening to and talking and arguing about," says Denise Kelleher. "It can sometimes be a great comfort - and sometimes it can make you very homesick."
While internet radio brings expats closer to home, perhaps the most profound effect of the Internet on radio is the unprecedented control it gives to listeners. Miss a programme in the morning? Listen to it in the afternoon. Just want to hear a specific item on a longer show? A few hours after the initial broadcast, and many RTÉ and all BBC shows will allow you to pick and choose exactly what part of a programme you want to hear.
This new-found freedom of choice can be viewed as part of a wider media trend. "Just look at what's happening with Sky Plus [ which allows viewers to choose when they see specific TV programmes]," says John McMahon. "You can tell a computer what programmes you like and it'll make your own TV channel for you. I think that's what could happen with digital radio in the future. The internet's pointing that way now, and I think the dominance of a fixed schedule where you have to listen to certain things and certain times will fade."
But there's more to internet radio than just listening to familiar programmes and stations. The internet opens the world of international radio to ordinary listeners, from comedy on BBC Radio 4 to American discussion and debate on National Public Radio. It can introduce listeners to music from all over the world. And it offers a vast amount of niche stations which would never exist without the web. Setting up an online station doesn't require a licence and is relatively cheap and simple, and so there are thousands of internet-only stations devoted to specific tastes and interests. Whether you like French jazz or French cookery, a quick Google search should enable you to find a radio station online that could have been designed especially for you. The choice is simply unprecedented.
The internet is also the perfect way to boost the profile of a station - or to keep a station going. When the much-loved Dublin alternative music station Phantom FM was forced off the airwaves in 1999, it started broadcasting online while it applied for a licence. Since then, Phantom has been granted a series of temporary licenses, but has spent most of the time off the airwaves.
The station's internet presence, however, meant that it kept hold of its regular listeners. "We wouldn't have survived without the website," says Phantom's Simon Maher. "If we'd just vanished without a trace between broadcasts, we wouldn't have got this far." It has paid off - Phantom FM was finally granted a licence recently and will return to the Dublin airwaves full time in July.
Phantom's internet presence was greatly helped by the increase in Irish broadband connections. Although a dial-up connection is fine if you just want to hear a single short item from yesterday's Morning Ireland, casual Internet radio use on a dial-up just isn't practical unless you don't care about racking up a huge phone bill and clogging up your phone line.
"When we first went online, the majority of our listeners, by about 10 to one, were American, because so few people had broadband here at the time." says Maher. The station served as an unofficial ambassador for Irish rock music, introducing many obscure Irish bands to a huge international audience.
BUT THE AVAILABILITY of cheaper broadband connections at home has allowed more Irish music lovers to listen to internet radio. "Since then, the demographic has changed noticeably," says Maher. "The majority of our online listeners now are based in Ireland - the people who'd be listening to Phantom on the radio."
Laptops and PCs aren't going to replace analogue radios - at least, not for a while. But the internet is still changing the way we listen to the radio. As well as giving us more control over what we listen to and how we listen to it, it allows us to listen to almost every radio station on earth. And if we're far away from home, it can stop us feeling homesick - and not just because it's nice to hear an Irish accent again.
As Denise Kelleher in Tokyo says, "you can't beat listening live to AA Roadwatch while it tells you about a Dart and bus strike, and how the Red Cow roundabout is backed up for tens of miles, and thinking, 'I don't care - I'm thousands of miles away, we're nine hours ahead of Dublin and I'm already at home.' It's bliss!"