Why are podcasts (read talk radio) still crazy popular? Cause sometimes you just want to listen without having to pay attention visually

Price. You can buy an AM/FM radio on an integrated circuit for probably under a dollar ready to integrate. I've seen radios given away as swag including wired earbuds.

Ubiquitous access to portable devices that show video is close, but the devices are expensive, data is expensive, and watching video while driving is illegal.

Cars. The answer is cars.

It's basically all of those things, but also that a newer technology doesn't necessarily mean the older technology has no use. People still use bicycles even though cars and motorcycles exist. People still read books even though audiobooks and TV shows exist. The number of people doing those things may have gone down, but they have a specific use case and need that the "better" technology doesn't satisfy.

On the other side, there are technologies that get entirely replaced by the successor. because it's just flatly better even in the same scenarios. 8-Tracks being made completely irrelevant by Cassettes, for example.

Cars. For the majority of the 20th century, radio was pretty much the only way to listen to music in a car. That alone was likely enough to keep it economically viable.

You can't drive safely while watching a TV.

I feel like once self-driving vehicles are the only kinds that exist and they have TVs in them, radio will crash big time.

No portable TVs, you can listen with your eyes closed, music.

I don't understand how the two technologies even compete. This post makes no sense to me.

Because Alistor is a crafty fucker.

More genuinely... they're not entirely overlapping experiences. Just listening without needing to stare frees room for more consideration or imagination.

There are things that are better on a TV, like a Marvel movie, and things that are better on a radio, like a Douglas Adams story.

I’d agree with you on cars — cheap and easy to keep throwing radios in.

Sidebar: Not many classic radio shows made the transition to tv. Jack Benny, literally the most popular of shows, had a rough switch to TV because the timing was so different. For example: Instead of a foley guy doing a doorbell sound and immediately having it open, you now have a camera spending a couple seconds tracking someone walking across the room to answer a door in silence. The vaudeville structure of having a song in the middle, or trying to put on a show as the premise of the show, didn’t work (until the Muppets). Then there’s the whole laugh track or laugh box juicing issue that some railed against or over-embraced, and it all kind of fell apart. A few managed, but it was rare.

TVs weren't portable.

Radio and TV are like apples and oranges. Sure, they're both fruit, but they're different enough to occupy different niches in our diets

It's kind of a bonkers question because they are different technologies with different use cases only related in that they were both used for entertainment. It's almost like "how did trains survive the invention of airplanes?" (or boats and planes).

I listen to the radio a lot. The BBC has some excellent radio on offer. My favourite is Radio 6 Music, a DAB-only station that just plays music all day. Various DJs, a bit of chat, but mostly music. No ads. Like others have said, it doesn't demand attention, you can listen or not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Radio_6_Music

The amount of attention. You never sit down and say 'I'm going to listen to some radio'. Radio gets half your attention at best. When it's a movie or a streaming service or a TV then there's a battle on. When it's a background thing that requires little effort and (if you choose your station), it'll be broadly acceptable, why would you move away? Whether it be in your workplace, car or home, easily delivered engaging content wins. Unlike TV and physical press, Radio is not a 'burning platform', it has a few years left. Citation. I Ieft radio recently after 35 years in it. I wouldn't advise joining it as a career choice, but as mentioned, I think it'll be around for a while yet. (To the guys who say 'Cars'. All new cars are online now)

It takes a long time for new technologies to saturate the market. It would have taken decades from the release of the first TVs until 80% or more of people had one in their home. Likewise, it took decades before a sizable proportion of people had internet access. It is only now that cable television is not a thing that most people pay for access to--replaced by streaming services.

As TV was taking over, Radio and Cinema would have had their place. Radio still has a place in nearly every automobile sold across the entire planet.

Well, why would radio be superseded by TV? Imagine any situation in which a person could listen to radio. Could they just switch to a TV? Would they want to switch to a TV?

They are two different offerings. I listen to a lot of radio and I watch television too. For instance, radio is great for concerts (letting your fantasy run with the music), or listening to while you work. For tv you need to sit down and can’t really do much else, the experience is much more intense.

Radio didn't survive TV. It didn't totally die yet, but it's been trending towards death. Lots of radio shows couldn't transition to TV and died out. Lots of stations simply stopped existing, or relied more heavily on syndication. It wasn't all TV related, as systems advanced, you didn't need a DJ selecting and playing individual songs. Companies were also allowed to own more stations from the 80s to 96 when all caps were removed, which led.to massive consolidation.

Podcasting has led to a resurgence of the talk show format, but less so radio.

Radio still exists, but it's mostly due to the last vestiges of public good legislation.

1950s were before my time but later in the same century, FM radio was what we had instead of internet music and streaming. You could call radio stations and request particular songs, or sometimes they would announce that they would play some new album nonstop starting at 7pm, so you would be ready with your cassette deck. Or in general, they'd just play music all day, so you'd always have something to listen to. That's sort of what people do now anyway, except it's whatever the youtube algorithm is promoting instead of what the record labels were paying the radio stations to play. TV was never a 24/7 music medium like that. I guess MTV was a thing for a while but that was still different.

AM radio on the other hand was mostly for news and sports updates, particularly in cars. So the most valuable advertising slots were during "drive time", i.e. commute hours.

well music did not benefit from a tv at all until music videos became popular in the 80's when video killed the radio star. Seriously though then there is the car which tapes and then cds and such sorta ate into but I know for myself I still just throw the radio on in the car. I real don't want any more of a distraction than that. I bet most people listen to broadcast radio now more often than watch broadcast tv if you look over the whole population. Maybe not but I would not be surprised. Its way cheaper to.