Kids today don’t listen to the radio – they all listen to streaming audio like Spotify!

Young people today don’t listen to the radio – they are all downloading Podcasts!

Radio is dying – music has split into too many genres, and is too specialised for stations to appeal to an audience!

Radio is dying – These teenagers and their rock and roll music are killing the wireless!

Radio is dying – Television is the coming thing!

Radio? Why would anyone listen to someone else, instead of having family sing-along at home?

Yes, well.

The death of radio has been predicted ever since the broadcast industry was created.

And it will no doubt continue to be predicted.

But as Mark Twain might have said, “The report of (radio’s) death was an exaggeration.”

I have been listening to a number of radio stations over the past week, as they resumed normal programming after the Christmas break.

Since the last week of December, many stations have had the “B-team” on air .. and in many cases, it was obvious that they were voice-tracking rather than live.

But in the last week or so many of the breakfast teams, for example, have resumed operations – and it is interesting to hear the difference.

Here are three examples within an hour of each other in a single morning.

One was a trio on a cap-city station discussing gossip about movie stars, and royals – and movie stars talking about royals.

Now, I am not a fan of gossip – but it was delivered in a fun and fast fashion, so I didn’t mind. I assumed (correctly) that it would be like a bus timetable. If I wasn’t happy, something else would come along soon.

The second example was a breakfast duo in a major regional market. And this was much more disappointing. Despite the subject of their discussion piece being interesting, it just didn’t flow. The presenters either talked over each other, or left large uncomfortable gaps. It sounded like the presenters hadn’t worked out what they were going to say. I was reminded of the advice I was given as a young DJ 40+ years ago … “the best ad-lib is one that you have carefully prepared”.

My third example is a solo presenter in a small country market who was riffing on a story that I’d run as a news item days earlier (the declining number of ravens in the Tower of London.) It was a light-and-fluffy piece, delivered with gentle humour and a sort of wide-eyed “who’d have thought it” delivery.

All three were different – but all had obviously thought about what their listeners wanted to hear, and sought to deliver that (with varying degrees of success.)

Which is something that radio has done for 100 years, since the first commercial station opened in the Netherlands in 1919.

And that’s something that radio will continue to do.

But just as radio in the 1920s was vastly different to radio in the 1970s (or the 2020s) the medium will continue to change, to meet the needs of its audience. Wherever that audience might be.

On that subject, I mentioned that I was listening to a variety of stations across the country.

If you haven’t already grabbed the RadioApp at radioapp.com.au, I suggest you do so – more than 350 Commercial, ABC and SBS stations from around Australia on your mobile phone … it’s a radio lover’s best friend 🙂

(Photo by Gratisography on Pexels.com)