O renascimento da rádio acontece muito por responsabilidade de benefícios tecnológicos que surgem poucos anos antes e se conjugam naquele momento. Crisell distingue três: o desenvolvimento do som estéreo (primeiros testes em 1958); a abertura dos primeiros transmissores VHF que permitem a emissão em FM (na GB em 1955) e a construção do primeiro transístor (em 1947). “By replacing the old wireless valve, which was large, costly and consumed much primary power, the transistor allowed radios to be constructed which used less power, were more reliable, and most important of all, were much cheaper and smaller - small enough to be carried around in a hand or a pocket” (29). O transístor teve consequências notáveis, porque ao potenciar a portabilidade da rádio conduziu-a ao que é hoje: o meio secundário por excelência. “It it was at thee beginning of the 1960s that the transistor revolution began, so that at the very time when radio had lost its pre-eminence and seemed, indeed, to be facing extinction it discovered a new and apparently irreducible advantage in its very limitation. As a secondary medium it could be carried around and its messages absorbed in a way not possible even with portable television” (29).