Sinking to survive: radio’s plunge to new lows
When I was a child, our house helpers would listen to Teban and Goliat, and of course, “Verboten”, a popular R-rated radio program in the 1980’s, which we, children who were supposed to be napping, could still overhear.
In my teens and college years, my mornings were filled with the voices of Jane Paredes from dyRC’s “Editoryal”, the insightful commentaries of Cerge Remonde on dyLA, and the soothing voice coupled with on-the-spot political insights of Malou Guanzon-Apalisok. After college and into my young professional years, I became acquainted with Leo Lastimosa’s timbre-rich, stirring commentaries.
Today, I am no longer a habitual radio listener, given the popularity of online platforms. However, I still listen to commentaries from public affairs programs, mostly replays online from radio and YouTube programs by Jhunnex Napallacan of dyLA, Ruphil Bañoc of dyHP, and Leo Lastimosa, who has a solid following with his “Baruganan” program on YouTube.
Last year, I became privy to a survey conducted in connection with the barangay elections. One of the questions asked respondents about their most listened-to AM/FM radio station. Brigada News FM ranked among the top three, if not the most listenedto radio station, in many of the surveyed barangays. This was particularly surprising to me, as Brigada was
completely off my radar.
Nevertheless, I welcome the fact that many people still listen to AM stations or FM stations that have shifted their format to AM-style public affairs. I'm among those who believe that, despite the emergence of online or digital media, radio is here to stay for many years to come. Radio remains the most convenient, least expensive, and disaster-proof medium for obtaining information. It's also immediate and suitable for background listening, not requiring undivided attention from the listener.
However, this does not negate the fact that radio stations are currently facing a dwindling audience and, as a result, are under immense pressure to maintain, if not increase, their revenues to stay afloat. And this is what I had told my class in Human Rights Law: immense pressure can turn anyone among us into perpetrators of violations, compromising our sense of decency and the very rights we aim to protect.
The same pressure has caused the quality of radio content, in terms of both substance and decency, to plummet to record lows. Popular commentaries nowadays bear a striking resemblance to titillating TikTok reels, with commentators and actors engaging in outrageous antics or catering to prurient interests solely to achieve high engagement.
That is the milieu within which that shameful and nowcontroversial episode occurred on Brigada News FM, featuring an interview by two radio anchors of the station, one of them a lawyer, with a four-year-old victim of sexual abuse. My colleagues at the Children’s Legal Bureau, where I sit as a board member, asked me if I had managed to watch or listen to the interview. I replied that I had only caught the initial parts because I couldn’t stomach listening to the entire thing --it was that disturbing even by my already generously liberal standards.
But, similar to my view on corruption, indecent lows on the radio are, for the most part, tolerated, if not encouraged, due to a lack of foresight. By ditching decency and credibility, radio programs may succeed in the short term by increasing their audience ratings, but ultimately, they will face demise, akin to a sick person in the last stages of life experiencing a sudden burst of energy before succumbing the next day.
"Immense pressure can turn anyone among us into perpetrators of violations, compromising our sense of decency and the very rights we aim to protect."