In her recent post, Tania hinted at the questions, what is radio and what do we have to do to beat the competition?

Personally I listen to more of it now than at any point before, but a big chunk of this is non-live. There’s our podcasts and some BBC shows on the recently updated iPlayer, but at least half are programmes from people who aren’t traditionally part of this industry. Many of these podcasters baulk at the term ‘radio’ being applied to their work, the likes of The Guardian take a dim view of commercial radio and don’t want their programmes tarnished with the poor image often attached to our industry.

But there’s another view that suggests the method of delivery, whether it be a battered old radio, satellite TV or web, doesn’t matter; it’s the stuff you are listening to that counts. This explosion in competition shouldn’t be seen as the end of radio, it only accounts for a small proportion of listening at the moment, but we could see it as the beginning of a new impetus for creativity and fresh thinking.

Radio used to be the ethereal medium: once the segment had finished, it disappeared into the air. This inspired a thinking in many programmers that the stream was everything; you didn’t need to make amazing shows, they just needed to have continuity, fit exactly into the station’s mould and not deviate. Over time this ideology became more and more ingrained in commercial radio to the point where creativity has largely been stamped out at many stations*. Whilst it’s true that you need to make your listeners feel at home, if we really want to achieve our ambitions we need to surprise the audience and give them more than their mere expectations. In this way we can make programmes that become highlights in a schedule and stand alone alongside the new competition we face across different platforms.

Finally, these new ways to listen also matter in themselves, as they offer us new ways to enrich our programming and connect with the audience, like adding extra information, video and even social recommendation into our programming. Take a look at some of the exciting things the BBC is experimenting with, like their Olinda and Pop projects.

Far from killing radio, digital is breathing fresh life and ideas into it. Excitingly, this blog has already become a public forum for some unconventional ideas – I hope we see more of them.

Tony

*It’s worth a mention that there is another broadcaster which followed a different route and has reaped its rewards.