Where did it all go wrong with Radio?
Let’s just put it out there from the very start; it’s not your fault.
They abused your trust.
They made promises they couldn’t keep.
They treated you like a number, not a person.
And then they sold you down the river.
They did that.
But, just who are They anyway?
They; the people who ruined Radio.
It turns out it wasn’t video that killed the radio star after all, it was the accountants, but that isn’t quite as catchy for a song chorus.
Radio; once the heart and soul of the nation, and the community.
Radio; the place to hear the music that would change your life.
Radio; the presenters who cared passionately about the music they played, and you trusted them to do so.
Radio; to gather around and listen to, knowing you were part of a community, a tribe of others.
Radio; happening in the here and now, in the moment; you had to be there or you missed it.
So where did it all go wrong?
It’s hard to pinpoint a specific point in time, but it’s clear where the intent went awry; once the listener became reduced to a statistic.
The analysts at radio stations want to know two things mainly:
How many listeners do they have?
How long are they listening for?
It’s very rare to achieve both.
If they want huge numbers then they have to play the hits every hour with heavy rotation, just so they can say they have huge listening figures; but the truth is that while numbers might be high, listener loyalty and listening time is low.
If they want listeners to stay for a longer time then they need to have a wider variety of amazing tunes.
Advertisers want large numbers, not long listening times though. They want to know if their advert is going to reach the largest number of people.
So advertising ends up driving everything.
It’s a numbers game, and people become reduced down to mere demographics.
But, sadly, there is only one loser in all of this; the listener.
The listener gets bombarded by constant advertising breaks. And, the repetitive music, on heavy rotation, is essentially selected to please the advertisers and the major record labels.
Local radio stations can't survive in this kind of money game, so they are being swallowed up by the big boys of the industry and nationalised, and sanitised.
It’s no longer a pleasure and privilege to listen to the radio, it’s a chore.
The number one habit radio listeners today share is that they flick constantly from station to station to avoid the adverts and the songs they’ve already heard earlier.
That’s not good enough.
The listener deserves more.
And, that’s why we created The Buzz Mcr; to return the listener to the top of the pyramid.
We want to play the music that makes people want to listen; and we want to keep the music interesting, so you never know what’s coming next.
And, we don’t want adverts to interrupt the music; and we don’t want advertisers to influence the music we played.
And, we want to create shows in the evening which people will gather around and listen to, in the moment, like they used to.
No downloads, ‘on demands’ or ‘listen laters’.
But, we know we’ve got a long way to go.
The damage has been done.
People don’t trust Radio anymore.
And, alongside a rare few other renegade radio stations who are fighting this good battle with us, we now have to try to rebuild that trust and prove the others wrong.
We have to prove that people do still want great music, and they do still want a radio station that gives them something they can believe in and belong to.
And while we can work tirelessly to do our bit, you play the biggest part in helping us achieve that by listening to the station and sharing our mission with your friends and family.
I’ll leave you with the rather prophetic, and poignant, words of Mr Roger Taylor from 1983,
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