New Wave Radio   

YOUR RADIO, SO SIMPLE for so many years, is about to change in a big way, morphing into a mobile computer that delivers news, music and other information from satellites, over broadband lines and through old-fashioned broadcasting.

SATELLITE RADIO: Two companies, New York-based Sirius and Washington, D.C.-based XM, have lined up deals with almost every major automaker, radio manufacturer and electronics retailer to produce, distribute and install radios with three bands--AM, FM and satellite. Starting in 2001, each satellite company will sell about 100 channels of programming, about half of it music and half news and other spoken word, for $9.95 a month. Both companies have signed agreements with major news organizations such as CNN, BBC, NPR, Bloomberg and CNBC to provide newscasts and talk shows; in addition, XM is putting together its own newsroom of reporters and editors.

INTERNET RADIO: Thousands of broadcast radio stations, music buffs, political movements and deejay-wannabes around the globe have jumped onto the Internet with audio programming. Now, newspapers, TV stations and wire services are poised to join them, in part because while the promise of comfortably watchable video on the Web remains a distant vision, audio sounds just fine through your computer. For news organizations, it's one more step toward the blurring of distinctions among media.

DIGITAL RADIO: Running just a couple of steps behind their satellite competition, the engineers at iBiquity Digital are preparing to offer existing radio stations a way to triple or quadruple their programming by transmitting news headlines, sports scores, weather, traffic and advertising as text to be displayed on tiny screens in cars and on wireless Web phones. Many radio executives hope the new technology will help them compete with their new satellite and Internet challengers.