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Glite Dictionary
📤 To send to few 🎯 For a small group 📡 A targeted broadcast
narrowcast

narrowcast

7.7
A program or message sent to a small, specific group rather than everyone
  • noun
  • /ˈnɛroʊˌkæst/
  • Literature
translation icon : transmisión dirigida
  • Many organizations use narrowcast media to reach targeted groups with specific interests.

Examples

  • The new podcast is designed for a narrowcast audience interested in niche topics.

  • This was not yet an environment that could tolerate even narrowcast energy.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • While all this activity was transpiring, broadcast and narrowcast television was rapidly becoming the most popular and prevalent mass medium in history, infiltrating American homes at a rate faster than any previous technology.

    Academic text (2003)

  • "The Shrinking of Foreign News/From Broadcast to Narrowcast," Garrick Utley, Foreign Affairs, March/April 1997, pp. 6-7.

    Academic text (2001)

  • This narrowcast channel provides programs tailored specifically for local community events.

Antonyms

broadcast
  • Literature
484 2.9

A radio or television program sent out to the public

How Targeted

narrowcast
  • Literature
7.7
broadcasting
102 2.9

Surface Forms

narrowcast singular
narrowcasts plural

Morphology

narrowcast = narrow + cast (semi-transparent) = narrow + cast

Compound of 'narrow' + 'cast' analogous to 'broadcast'; the noun sense is deducible but relies on the broadcasting sense of 'cast'.

Etymology

Narrowcast combines narrow ('small or limited') and broadcast ('send to many people'), so a narrowcast is a programme or message created for a particular small group instead of the general public.