It’s been a rocky year for radio and for a couple of my favourite internet stations in particular. After a very promising start, Wight FM appears to have all but disappeared down the tubes, while multi-genre Play Radio UK has ditched its live output in order to prop up costly new FM services in Southampton and Winchester. On the other hand though, SunTalk sounds to me like it’s going from strength to strength.
This morning listeners across Sussex woke up to a new name on the radio dial. After almost 26 years on the Sussex airwaves, Southern FM joined 32 other stations under Global Radio’s ubiquitous Heart brand and in the process, a significant piece of my own broadcast history has disappeared into thin air.
Back in 1983, I was lucky enough to be a part of the launch team at Southern Sound Radio (as it was then known) and although the hours were long and the money was truly lousy, I wouldn’t have missed those years in Franklin Road, Portslade for the world.
Call me on a Monday night and you’ll wind up talking to my answering machine. Not because I’m out at bingo or washing what’s left of my hair but because I’m super-glued to my TV, following Gene Hunt’s latest antics in the gloriously un-PC Ashes To Ashes. It’s not just the old cops & robbers routine that attracts me, nor the fact that even the darkest days of the 80’s are now starting to look rosy in these old eyes of mine but more than anything, I just happen to love the music.
The online radio revolution gathers yet more pace this week with news that The Sun is to launch its own talk radio channel in April. Sun Talk is part of a £1m investment in video & radio services at News International’s best-selling daily tabloid and headlining the schedule will be former Talk Sport presenter, Sun columnist and general tub-thumper of the parish, Jon Gaunt. Now, while some will be quick to dismiss the venture as either a marketing ploy or perhaps an attempt at breathing new life into Gaunt’s colourful radio career, I think this could mark the start of a bold new synergy between print and radio that may end up posing a significant challenge to traditional broadcast outlets.