"With Britain's first two national commercial radio stations - Virgin 1215 and Classic FM - already on the air, the 90s are set to bring unprecedented expansion to the national, regional and local radio station network - and yet more controversy over the role of the BBC. In this new edition of Understanding Radio, Andrew Crisell re-addresses the characteristics of this fascinating and paradoxical medium. He explores how radio processes such genres as news, drama and comedy in highly distinctive ways, and how the listener's use of the medium has important implications for audience studies. In addition, Andrew Crisell's revised historical account of radio brings the reader right up to date, and includes a brand new chapter on talk-and-music radio - the format adopted by so many of the new stations - in which he explains why the sound medium, even more than television, has played such a crucial role in the development of modern popular culture. This new edition of Understanding Radio will be essential reading both to students of the media, and to those with a practical involvement in programme production." (Publisher description)