ABSTRACT
Radio is one of the most effective and cheapest means of communication especially in developing and under-developed countries. However, in the last two decades, as newer forms of media such as internet, social media amongst others have emerged; they have challenged radio’s once-dominant position as a widely used medium that reaches large and heterogeneous audiences (Sherwood, 2015). Radio has, in turn, adapted to this challenge by embracing, evolving and adapting to new media technologies to spread its signals farther and more efficiently to a larger audience. As a result, Internet radio emerged in 1993 when Carl Malamud launched “Internet Talk Radio” (Wikipedia, 2022).
The purpose of this study is to find audience reception of internet radio using University of Benin Mass Communication students as the case study. The questionnaires were administered to ninety – one (91) student as respondents. The study reviewed the works of other researchers and in the course of the study, four (4) research questions were raised thus: What is the audience reception of programmes aired on internet radio? What are the challenges/limitations of audience reception of programmes on internet radio? What is the perception of University of Benin Students on internet radio? What is the future of audience reception of internet radio?
Survey methodology was used and from the above four research questions were 20 items raised in the questionnaire to gather the data for this study. This questionnaire was subjected to a test-re-test reliability check and a reliability coefficient of 0.79 which shows that the instrument was reliable enough for the study and the data gathered were analysed using the simple percentage and frequency method of analysis.The findings of the study included: programmes aired on internet radio include; Educational programmes, Political programmes, football news, fashion shows and other programmes which are not duly specified. Barriers and limitations to accessing internet radio include; lack of data, inconsistency on the part of the internet service providers, sluggish phone operations as most of the respondents are students who cannot afford to buy fast phones, annoying pop-up ads.Internet radio is not as engaging as the normal radio frequency and the programs aired on internet radio is not as educative as the normal program and it is data consuming. Future of internet radio is quite bright as most of the respondents agreed that internet radio will be the centre of reliable information soonest, internet radio may be ousted by a new invention as technology is growing fast, internet radio will be embraced by many.
