Radio None
British radio is on a rampage. New technological developments, such as DAB and podcasting, are growing in popularity. Old episodes of many programmes can now be downloaded free of charge from websites, and even traditional listening habits seem in little danger of decline — from January to March of this year, an average of 90% of people aged fifteen and above tuned into their radio each week. It is puzzling, therefore, that student radio in the UK makes so little impact.
Despite Oxide’s oh-so-subtle advertising campaigns — Hook Up And Get Some anyone? — it is a widely accepted truth that more people want to become presenters than actually want to listen to the station. This is not a problem unique to Oxford. Durham’s Purple Radio has around 100 DJs, but its body of regular listeners, according to David Wheatley, presenter of the daytime talk show Politics Matters, is “not very large”.
The OpenAir Radio project, based at SOAS, received feedback from as far afield as Tokyo, but little support from within the university itself. “It ended up really in the hands of individual presenters to get their friends to tune into their shows,” says Robert Blake, the project’s lead technician when it went on air last November. Once presenters know that only their own friends will be listening, they tend to become far less accessible to an outside audience.
Wheatley describes the spoken links between songs on playlist shows as “very random. Just in-jokes for the DJs and their friends”. It is therefore hardly surprising that listeners who stumble across shows of this kind do not feel compelled to stay. Technical issues are also relevant. Most student stations, including Oxide, are only available on the Internet.
It is not that much more effort to go to a website and click listen than it is to turn on a radio, but once problems with firewalls, incompatible players and mysteriously lapsed audio streams are factored in, the hassle is significantly greater. As one Oxide DJ put it, “we’re unreliable and don’t work”. British universities should be a very healthy environment for amateur broadcasting, but sadly, student audiences seem likely to stick with Radio 1.
1st Jun 2006