Radio Killed The Radio Star

(Bonus point if you get the song title I adulterated for the title of this post.)

I’ve been a radio listener on and off since my early childhood, mostly talk stations but some music shows from time to time. It has evolved over the decades, from Medium Wave (AM for you US folks) to FM, then various tweaks to FM, then DAB digital radio, and finally internet radio from the 2000s onward.

Some of those changes are welcome — getting a good signal on FM radio was a challenge at the best of times — but in the last few years, there has been a technological shift that I find both disturbing and depressing.

I’m not talking about the content of radio these days; that’s a whole other discussion for another time. No, I’m referring to the increasing moves to silo radio content inside of apps.

This has been happening slowly and is sold to listeners as offering convenience and a greater choice of content. But now it’s getting to the stage where alternative ways of listening online are being shut off.

Commercial radio groups have led the way on this, but the BBC is following suit by funnelling more listeners towards their Sounds app here in the UK.

Part of the appeal, I suspect, is the ability to track and analyse what listeners do, and monetise that data. Even where the listener is paying to access content, often with the promise of no or reduced advertising.

As someone who loves radio, I find this profoundly disheartening. Not only because you’re faced with having to install multiple apps to access your favourite stations. Not only because it greatly reduces the ability to discover alternatives. But because it signals to me that the word ‘radio’ may lose its meaning altogether in years to come. It’ll just be another platform where we’ll be tracked, profiled and marketed to.

I can see a point in the near future where a justification will be made for auctioning off the frequency bands currently used by FM, DAB and other radio channels because “everyone has gone online now”. It will be a sad day when that comes to pass.