COMMENT EMMA BARNETT

AS YOU lay the table for this week’s Friday-night dinner, stop and think about the conversations that will ensue. I bet you can predict a few of them — especially if you are having your regular crew over. “How’s the children/your hip/ annoying neighbour?” are probably some of the refrains that spring to mind.

But how amazing would it be if you could edit out all of the boring platitudes and just cut to the good stuff? It is precisely this desire that we all have for brilliant conversation that I believe underpins the continued popularity of radio in this country. How else can it be explained that in the frenetic digital age, radio listener figures are at an all time high – with 90 per cent of Britons tuning into their favourite stations every week?

At its best, speech radio delivers a perfect conversation to hungry lugholes. Well-cast and highly informed characters come together, while we presenters fire At its very best, radio can ask all those things you yearn to know questions at them — asking all the things that you, the listener, are secretly yearning to know.

I began presenting radio a few years ago because of one phenomenal exchange. In my former job, I tracked down one of the founders of Twitter, Evan Williams, and coaxed him into his first British interview. Over one too many cocktails, I landed my scoop and a brilliant insight into the future of communication. Later, as I frantically and rather woozily typed up our chat, I was dismayed no one had heard our sparky conversation verbatim. That’s when I decid-