Think about it – in this age where you completely control every aspect of your audio consumption experience, why do you still need music radio..?

I’ll be honest: before I started working in radio I had very little time for the medium.

There was a perfectly valid reason for that, too: these days we’ve potentially got all the music we’ll ever need on demand. And chances are we’re not getting the vast majority of that selection via radio.

We’re completely spoilt for choice, with easy access to free (and paid) download services, and to media streaming via any number of platforms, most of which are (for the moment at least), also free.

The Personal Playlist is King

In the context of those services you’re in complete control of your own music listening experience, without the potential irritation of some presenter piping up to interrupt your enjoyment of your favourite song at just the wrong moment.

These days, the personal playlist truly is king, with options perfectly tailored to your individual, highly specialised taste.

Given this scenario, things boil down to one crucial question: if there’s never been a better time to collect, curate and completely customise your listening experience why in the world do you still need radio..?

Complex

It’s a complex puzzle that radio professionals are still piecing together but in spite of what might seem a very bleak picture, the business of radio broadcasting is still very attractive indeed.

In the face of these (relatively) new options disrupting the industry, research and audience stats show radio listening figures still aren’t vanishing anywhere near the doomsday rate some were suggesting.

In some sectors numbers are actually holding steady and even growing, thanks in part to lower barriers to entry which make setting up stations with the potential to profitably service niche tastes.

The Case For Radio

When radio is done brilliantly there’s nothing like it: useful and practical, with fantastic audience engagement, a sense community, appealing content (including highly relevant news, localised travel and weather updates), all served up without you needing the extra effort of lifting a finger to fire up an app or log on to yet another website.

The best stations have a great overall sound, designed to be precisely relevant to your taste and lifestyle, and fronted by engaging personalities.

Then there’s the randomised, ‘exciting discovery’ aspect: hearing that awesome classic from back in the day for the first time in forever – or finding a great new song from a fresh (or an already established) artist.

Radio may never get back the phenomenal audience numbers from its days of old (the entire market is now too fragmented for that), but great radio will almost certainly be a strong complement to your existing listening options.

The reason for that is simple: people work very hard to make it that way.

And by and large, they succeed.

No Better Way

Yinka and Selene — Me, along with Selene Jordan on Premier Gospel’s Breakfast Show

Having said all that there’s probably no better way to make a case for radio than to hear from the people who are actually in the very thick of broadcast itself.

In this multi-part series you’ll hear directly from radio professionals: presenters, producers and station owners tell you why they think you still need radio in your life. I look forward to the cases they make.

This should be fun. Links to all the story sets are below

Yinka Awojobi
Content Development