It’s World Radio Day today. And what better way to mark the occasion than with this, one of the oldest radio recordings of King George V at the opening ceremony of the British Empire Exhibition back in 1924.
We know now that the in the early years of the twentieth century, this world was being watched closely by intelligences.
A lot of radio history there, Orson Welles, Charles de Gaulle speaking on the BBC and The Beatles. Dan Damon discussed radio with Gillian Reynolds radio critic for the Daily Telegraph newspaper. Dan first asked Gillian for her thoughts about the industry’s future including the future of podcasts.
I see radio’s continuing evolution. It’s the most extraordinary medium. You start with the oldest magic in the world, voices in the air. And you go on through transistors. And suddenly you are in the digital age. And radio is no longer the only medium that’s like the light diffusible around the world. But television is, too. Pictures are, too. And radio is embracing the digital age.
The idea of a podcast which is something that you don’t switch on a radio and listen to but you actually have to download it or you set your device to download it. The fact that that should grow in popularity rather than be the kind of tail end of a technology. Is radio remarkable?
It’s the most amazing medium. And it continues this magical evolution.
We work in the world’s very poorest countries. And I think what’s really remarkable about radio is how omnipresent it is. It’s everywhere. Something like 75% of households in the developing world have access to radio. You go to a country like Zambia in Africa. You’ll find that access to radio, you know, in Africaalone, eight out of ten households have access to radio. So it’s a very powerful medium and it’s particularly powerful for reaching the world’s poorest and most remote citizens. And it is for that reason a really powerful way of communicating ideas, encouraging discussion, debate and learning and really as we see it as promoting healthy lives in the poorest countries of the world.
We have to come clean at the BBC. We are working hard to understand what radio is in the digital age. And we try things on what update for example we do the interview on radio with photographers but then we show the pictures on YouTube. What do you think the digital age is offering?
I think what the BBC is doing is scrambling as you say to catch up a bit. But in other ways it isn’t.