The Rise And Rise Of The Radio

What's going on with the radio? Would you think that a century from now we'll still be using Ipods? How come the radio has managed to be relevant over such a long period of time, never mind growing in popularity?

The little speaking box is so old that its job was to replace the carrier pigeon, semaphore and smoke signals as the method of mass communication (well, ok, the telegraph). Some 110 years after its invention, its use is still ubiquitous. Not only is the device found in every car, truck, bus and newsagent but also in nearly every workplace in the Western World.

The Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico

The same technology is used in everything from your mobile phone to x-box wireless control pad. We use it to peer at the stars, to communicate with robots on Mars and even prevent the recurrence of some types of scars.

But considering the explosion in alternative entertainment media available to us all - laptops, TV, cable, handheld devices and video games - you may be surprised to know that use of the old wireless is steadily increasing.

In recent years listening to the radio overtook watching television as the main source of entertainment – the first time since the 60s - and some ear-opening trends emerged.

The relatively erudite BBC Radio 4 surpassed 10 million regular listeners in recent years after suffering a dip in popularity, while BBC Radio 2 is now the biggest station of all, almost twice as popular as BBC's Radio One.

But why?

Things in the radio world have certainly taken a wide u-turn. Radio 4's snootiness is now celebrated, Radio 2's archaisms are held with a glinting nostalgia, and while there's young mums and school kids [and generally people who hate good music] there'll be Radio One.

The commercial channels haven't found it quite as easy, but many are now doing well, especially with the rise in digital radio and the decreasing cost of bandwidth due to the imminent analogue switchover.

Finding and downloading podcasts is now much of the nation's new hobby, with programmes such as The Adam and Joe Show, Citizen Radio, In Our Time, The Infinite Monkey Cage and others all pushing much loved albums out of Ipod memories, but this only accounts for a small percentage of radio consumption.

What's surprising is that with all this free choice readily available, we're happy to listen to the programmes and scheduling decided by others, as that's probably the only unique feature of switching on the radio. Maybe that's why its audiences have grown. With the increased use of Sky Plus, BT Vision and the other self-scheduling services for TV, there's something attractive about the programming being done for us, and the joint experience of listening at the same time as everyone else.

It's an interesting phenomenon and not one anyone loudly predicted. 

It's just a pity the whole thing will fall apart come the 2014 switch over though, isn't it.