I don’t quite know when it happened but I’ve realised that I no longer sit down and watch the news on TV with any degree of regularity. Having spent a lifetime in the broadcast industry, the need to know what was going on in the world became an occupational habit and with the advent of rolling news channels, television became my drug of choice. But now it appears I’ve started to look elsewhere for my regular factual fix.
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.
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.