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Technology offers challenges to radio: portable music players allow listeners to function as their own program directors.

Article Excerpt
For radio to prosper in the age of the iPod, it needs to reach people such as Megan Delehanty.

The 21-year-old University of Southern California student listens to music at least three hours a day, regularly shops for used compact discs, browses music-oriented Web sites and has thousands of songs stored in her iPod.

What about radio? Delehanty said she would barely listen each day, if it weren't for her part-time job at KDLD-FM (103.1).

Struggling with stagnant revenue and audiences, radio stations in Los Angeles and across the country are grasping for ways to appeal to listeners such as Delehanty. They offer non-music programming for instant download, limited advertising and experimental formats that jump from genre to genre. But Delehanty, who is completing a degree in music, remains skeptical.

"All of my friends have filled up their 40 gig iPods (holding roughly 10,000 songs) and that's still not enough for them," said Delehanty, whose own employer, known as India 103.1, appeals to a loyal audience with a play list that ranges from familiar artists such as U2 to obscure ones such as Macrosick.

"Radio is trying to appeal to...

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