‘You’re not just travelling or doing chores, you’re being educated, informed, entertained’
downloading fits working life and smartphones. But the most interesting recent revelation was that the most popular downloads are old favourites, including among the young: Desert Island Discs, In Our Time, Just a Minute and other comedies – even the hoary old Archers.
There is no point denying surveys which show that the younger you are, the less likely you are to listen to live radio (though it still beats “listen again”).
There is hot competition for the nation’s ears, and bosses don’t accept that 16 to 24-year-olds might one day be 35 with kids, and want something different. The dreaded Alexa has an effect too: just name your playlist of choice and avoid physical effort of turning a knob.
Yet what is this? The latest figures show that both Radio 3 and Radio 4 have actually put on audiences; 3 has risen by 16.4 per cent to 2.13 million in the last quarter of 2019, and 4 is up by 4.7 per cent to 10.98 million. Others have suffered, since DJ music is available elsewhere: Zoe Ball lost a million listeners to Virgin, and Radio 1 hit a record low. So maybe the despised “linear” programmes which so worry the management, will win in the end.
Maybe there will even be a reversion to listening live, as so many of us do in the car or when doing a hobby or housework, the awful trusting our station to come up something we haven’t picked off a vast buffet.
Radio can double the value of your life: you’re not just travelling or doing chores, you’re being educated, informed, entertained.
On Radio 4 you may find yourself accidentally learning about a lost craft, a piece of history, a dramatic life or some strange daily existence and politics in a far country on From Our Own Correspondent – which with
OBVIOUSLY, sometimes you dive for the off button or move to 4 Extra or Classic or 6 Music, because you know that the patronising presenter, hellish comedian or doomladen subject will drive you mad. But equally often something new is welcome.
I love it too when a conversation is live: not just in news. It was one of the joys of Midweek, which always went live (few talk shows do now). There’s honesty in it: if the presenter quotes some much-repeated story about a celebrity, that celeb can say, in real time: “That never happened.”
And oddly enough, shy non-performers often do best live: knowing it’s a one-off they speak their truth more bravely and eloquently.
I loved being on the other side of microphone, and it is sad not to be: BBC’s choice, not mine.
But I have always said that editors must edit and controllers must control, otherwise they’d just be ornamental, and how many are fit for that? As a radio listener, I am still there, and still theirs.
Long live radio, whether it’s live or listen-again. It doubles your life. the the