Instant Aural Appetisers!

In Australia from November, radio listeners'll be able to actually control what's being played on-air in real time and even dump bad songs as they're playing, in a radical new experiment.

The Austereo radio network, in partnership with US internet radio station Jelli, will unveil a new 24-hour national digital radio station, Hot30 Jelli, next month.

On its website, listeners will see the live queue of songs to be played and can vote whether each song "rocks" or "sucks". The songs played will always be the ones with the most votes, and the next song to play is decided a split-second before the last song finishes. The initiative pampers to young people's desire for "instant gratification".

But I ask: why bother? The central core of radio is and always has been communication. If it's turned into an instant on-line jukebox, you might as well stick to an ipod. *sigh*
PS - Along the lines of the "evolution" of radio, you might like to read my 04 Feb.2009 post about the devaluation of journalism, then see what Rupert Murdoch plans to do about it...click here.