Tuning in the future: Digital technology and commercial radio broadcasting in Canada

Commerical radio, a pervasive part of the Canadian cultural landscape for nearly a century, is poised to undergo a fundamental transformation. Driven by a technology known as Digital Audio Broadcasting, radio broadcasters, with support of th estate, are proposing to replace conventional AM and FM radio, altering the familiar sounds we have known and re-organizing cultural practices associated with the medium. Prophesied as the "wave of the future," this digital technology and the new programming services it will engender, promise to draw Canadian radio into the "communications revolution," as well as the larger processes of globalization that are increasingly characterizing social, economic and political life. This essay outlines the nature of digital radio, the powers behind its development and stabilization, and some of the questions and issues that arise concerning not only the fate of radio broadcasting, but of commercial culture and cultural policy in Canadian national life.