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Okay, WI television had not been invented, and radio maintained its media domination? I'm looking at this mostly from a North American perspective, but I'd be interested in how this would pan out everywhere else.

Variables:

1) Local AM (mediumwave) radio maintains its dominance well into the present age. Armstrong et al. invent FM, but it's primarily used in a way similar to a HD radio sub-channel: more of a supplement to the 'standard' AM programming. Actually, this was the way FM was used in the 50's and into the early 60's -- as a relay for AM programming. Remember that AM/MW is better designed for spoken word, and FM is better designed for music. I think AM's decline in many parts of the world has much to do with TV's gradual dominance in newscasting, dramatic/sitcom entertainment, as AM was a strong spoken word medium. There are outlier examples, like AM conservative talk radio in the US, but I reckon that most people now associate "radio" with FM music programming and not as much with news broadcasting.

2) International broadcasters maintain extensive shortwave networks. Over the past 20 years the BBC (for example) has reduced World Service to Europe and North America, and this has only accelerated since widespread Internet access. Seems that the big broadcasters think that the "developed West" can afford streaming audio and FM relays, and that the saturation of these technologies in these markets obviates the need to direct their transmitters to W. Europe and N. America. WI these supplemental technological options did not exist, and shortwave programming remained supreme.

3) Taking off on 2) the Internet must never have been developed in order for this WI to truly work. That's a big issue here, but maybe it can still work.


Some effects:

1) Advertising radically changes from OTL TV experience. The elimination of visual association/enticement afforded by television would shunt advertising technique towards the spoken word and greater description. One way this was done in the radio age/early TV age was product sponsorship within programs. This worked well for radio since the product could be placed within the plot/narrative and described within context.

2) "I don't want my MTV." The OTL trajectory from AM 3-minute singles to FM album format to MTV videos to post-MTV streaming video would not likely have taken place. Record labels, the RIAA, radio networks, record shops, and other industry concerns would have more control over track selection and the narrowing of consumer options. I excluded FM purposefully since album-oriented stations radically changed the 45 dominated AM market. As an aside, I wonder if the LP would have taken off if FM never developed. ??? Essentially, no strong FM development = no 60's DJ culture and the transformation of the market model from 45's/EPs to LPs and more ...

3) News dissemination. I have a suspicion that people select a news network to watch not only because of political ideology etc. Rather, I think that decor and the presentation of anchors and pundits goes a long way towards roping viewers in. CNN has quite a different aesthetic than Fox News for example? A modern radio-only world would have leveled these differences while maintaining ideological slant.

4) Propaganda. How would nations with tight media control (North Korea, China, former USSR, Burma among others) develop in this ATL? How would lack of television affect the course of OTL political history (especially the dissolution of the USSR and the Eastern Bloc?) I'm thinking that the enhanced focus on shortwave would have kept the Soviet sphere more closely bound. Interestingly, the Warsaw Pact countries had different FM frequencies than Western Europe. In fact, I think that Russia, some of the former USSR states, and former Soviet satellites now use both frequency sets. Should FM not have developed as in OTL West, would this dual system have developed? Or, would FM also remain marginalized behind the Iron Curtain as much as it would be in the ATL West?

Enjoy!
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