BROADCAST JOURNALISM

TELEVISION AND RADIO WHICH IS MORE POWERFUL IN RELATION TO COVERAGE AND PRODUCTION.
Radio and television (TV) are both means of transmitting information to people. Radio is a process of sending and receiving messages through the air using electromagnetic waves. Television on the other hand is a piece of electrical equipment with a screen and which you can watch programmes with moving pictures and sound (OXFORD ADVANCED LEARNER’S DICTIONARY). As to which is more powerful (being able to control and influence people or events) in terms of coverage and production I would say RADIO.
Radio as compared to television has a wider coverage area. In Ghana, statistics (GHANA PRESS, MEDIA, TV, RADIO, NEWSPAPER BASIC DATA) shows that number of television sets per 1000 is 87.00, number of TV sets is 1,730,000 and number of TV stations is 11 as compared to radio. Number of radio receivers per 1000 is 221.2, number of radio receivers is 4,400,000 and number of radio stations is 21. The differences in the figures affirm the wider coverage of radio. Moreover, in Ghana most radio stations are able to transmit radio signals even to the northern side of the country unlike most TV stations which are limited to certain regions. Also, radio can be found everywhere, in cars, on phones and so on unlike TV.
Television is known to be audio-visual while radio is audio. This undisputed fact does not necessarily make TV more powerful over radio in terms of production. Production in radio is less difficult as compared to TV and such people are willing to go into radio production. For instance, in the production of news. A radio station would need a presenter, some technicians to operate the machines and a compelling message. The presenter “talk” the script since (S) he is communicating to the ‘ears’ of the listeners. It helps the listeners to be imaginative. Base on this, radio is the fastest medium to communicate information, TV stations are one minute late to communicate information especially live programmes. Unlike television that you would need presenters, camera men, lightening, technicians, make-up beauticians, background settings, even costume of the presenters. This makes TV production more difficult and less powerful.
The powerfulness of radio is seen in its ability to impact or influence majority of the people. Radio stations are able to carry out a lot of productions within a day as compared to television. The more productions (in relation to programmes) the more powerful you become since you influence a lot of people through the medium.
It is well known that television has the ability to capture the complete attention of people; it uses pictures, words, sounds and music to emotionally move and motivate people into action. These features of television, truly makes it powerful but not as radio since it has impact or influences not the majority of the people.
In conclusion, I would attest to the fact that television has exceptional features as explained above but radio is very powerful in terms of coverage and production.