STAY TUNED - Radio Is Still On

There is no doubt about the place of radio in the lives of people. Even with television’s widespread popularity, this purely sound medium continues to be patronized by many. More interestingly, there are much, much more radio stations today than there were when TV was yet a very rare thing.

A recent survey of Philippine households reveals that 85 percent owns TV sets. The viewership rate of TV broadcast registers an even higher percentage, as those without TV are welcome to watch at a neighbor’s home. And yet, TV has not completely displaced radio.

Radio has its own special place. Radio sets now come in very convenient sizes, enough to fit the palm of a hand or slip into a small coin purse. It’s possible to listen to radio while jogging or driving, but not to watch TV.

Among the low income sector, radio is preferred since it is more affordable, especially that the price of a unit has considerably gone down nowadays. Radio apparently consumes much less electricity, a cost that has become a major household issue with the skyrocketing power rates.

The main disadvantage of radio over television is, perhaps, its limited scope in terms of sensorial experience. You only hear radio, while you hear and see television. Yet radio’s very limitation might be its own advantage.

Radio requires more listener participation. When you listen to radio, your imagination is involved. There is no limit to the pictures your mind can come up with to match what you hear on radio, while you cannot see beyond what is shown on the TV screen.

For this reason, radio can be more fascinating. The medium makes the audience an active participant in the experience. Radio provides the sound, and then the listener decides what to see, in his mind.

Years ago, in the US, a highly successful radio soap opera was made into a TV show. Curiously, the TV version never stayed long, while the radio show continued to top the audience ratings.

Radio, too, is more immediate. It can deliver breaking news while events are still unfolding, an edge which TV has only lately been trying to equal. But while TV may have paralleled radio’s immediacy, it can hardly outdo the low cost and handiness of equipment necessarry for a live radio broadcast.

The magic of radio lies mainly on the level of competence of the radio producers. They are the ones that create the pictographic stimuli for the audience. Whether the program format is talk or music or drama, or a combination of these, good radio producers can make radio a really engaging experience. With tools like sound effects, stingers and other sound frills, radio can be made more visual and more appealing than the real audio-visual media like TV and film, or even live theater.

Yes, a good radio show requires extensive work and a lot of production savvy. But this is the way every good production project everywhere goes. Whether it’s your daughter’s debut party or a product launch or a political campaign rally, good production is very important. It’s the same thing also with television or the movies or live theater. Good preparation is central to good production.

Radio has recently been seeing a heightened dynamism in key cities in Asia. Here in the Philippines, new and more powerful radio stations are sprouting up. In Cebu alone, the number of radio stations have more than doubled in the last ten years or so.

Human talent is needed to complement the technical advances of today’s radio. Qualified production people are needed to ensure that the quality of programs comes at par with the stepped up broadcast power.

It’s true, however, that radio’s popularity has dwindled over the years. This is particularly noticeable with provincial stations downgrading their programming to boring talk, for lack of advertising support to underwrite the cost of producing good programs.

Many media advertisers, for their part, are beginning to reconsider radio as the more economical, yet equally effective, medium. They are gasping for breath amid the high cost of TV airtime. Yet even as they are desperately looking for a more viable alternative, advertisers still demand quality programs.

Many good radio producers have migrated to television. The pay there is better, of course. But the exodus need not have paled radio’s magic.

No one has the monopoly of creativity and imagination. The new ones that are on radio today could acquire the same good production skills that have launched the shining media careers of Orson Welles, Casey Kasem, and our own Noli de Castro, Rey Langit, Ginnie Vamenta, Emil Rizada, and Inday Nita. Given the advantage of today’s technology, new radio producers should even be able to do much better.

The problem, perhaps, is laxity. For instance, many young radio announcers now will board a “live” program without ample preparation. Some speak bland words and make a lousy sound, as if forgetting that radio is basically entertainment and thus requires a bright disposition.

Quality assurance has become purely a matter of individual discretion among today’s radio program handlers. New radio producers no longer do close supervision, and are willing to do only little work in the light of their meager pay. But then this attitude could only seal their tight situation. Those who don’t go the extra mile won’t get any farther.

Radio remains, and will probably continue to be, a significant force in our modern life experience. The question is not whether radio will stay for long – but whether it can hold its place up high in the public’s order of media preference.

This is a challenge our present radio program producers and handlers must face. They hold the magic wand. If they continue to look the other way, radio might eventually become the proverbial voice in the wilderness. While it will still be here, it can lose much of its magic.

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