Host and Producer, Chris Lindgren, of the Mission Edition TV features broadcaster, Tom Lucas, and internet entrepreneur, Hugh Dobbie, as they discuss the challenges they faced in launching Canada’s first live and interactive radio program over the internet in 1996.

Viewers can see that the show tried to bring people from around the world together into an intimate setting via the internet.  There is banter about radio executives pooh-poohing the idea, musings about video coming to the internet, and jokes about buffering.

There is also some foreshadowing of how people would come to be tracked on the internet. It amazed us that we could see when people were accessing the stream, and where they were coming from.  All of this pre-dates YouTube (2005), iTunes (2001) and even Napster (1999). There was some internet radio experimentation happening as early as 1993, but it took until late 1995 for things to really gain traction with the launch of RealAudio.

Fast forward to today and audio and video is ubiquitous on the internet – with competing platforms shoving stuff at us from all directions with the sole purpose of competing for clicks, giving us dopamine hits, and fuelling sensationalism, outrage and doomscrolling. There is still good stuff to be found, but it is becoming increasing harder to navigate to find it. Hopefully there are smart people out there that can right the ship.