Ban-Ki Moon on Radio - what on earth were they thinking?

Imagine if Helen Boaden, soon to be Director of Radio at the BBC, went on TV with a message about the medium of radio rather like Ban-Ki Moon did this week. 751 views so far. So, no-one has watched it.

And the background speaks volumes. An analogue tape recorder which is doesn't seem to be recording (so why is it playing back) and a table full of equipment which few people in radio would recognise these days. Empty tape reels grabbed from an archive somewhere. Looks like the set of a CIA espionage thriller or the set of Thunderbirds. (If you like old tape-recorders, do check out Dusty Gizmos. If, like me, you lugged around a UHER tape recorder on radio interviews in the 1980's, you'll be in heaven when you see this). Is this the image of radio that the UN wants to propagate? Apparently so.

But seriously, this sort of nonsense is helping to marginalise radio, not position it as a relevant part of a much larger media ecosystem. It's all about the past. Irini Bokova of UNESCO was even worse. It's a passionless statement. When good radio is all about creating an engaging conversation. If radio is in trouble, how will this help to turn the tide?

Funniest subtitles I've read in a long time.

Subtitles on radio don't work. This might explain the nonsense subtitles that are on this UNESCO video. My favourite is the little known service radio provides: Invoice the Voiceless.

Several readers pointed out that I have complained about this Radio Day nonsense before. Exactly a year ago. Yet everything still holds true. What a pity.

Does Radio Need a Special Day? Not in my opinion

UNESCO seems to think so. Because today is World Radio Day. And that's worrying.

Frankly, special days are usually a sign that something is seriously wrong, that something needs to be saved. And in the case of the majority of international radio stations, the axe has fallen ages ago. I find the UNESCO site to be a trip down memory lane. Clearly, not many people have found it. Probably because it's not clear what is supposed to happen. We get this...

In 2012, World Radio Day was proclaimed by UNESCO, following a request from the Academia Espanola de la Radio of Spain, to celebrate radio broadcast, improve international cooperation among radio broadcasters and encourage decision-makers to create and provide access to information through radio, including community radios. The occasion draws attention to the unique value of radio, which remains the medium to reach the widest audience and is currently taking up new technological forms and devices.

Where is the narrative?

Radio is always about engaged storytelling. This effort is very far from it. For a cultural organisation,  UNESCO doesn't seem to have created a narrative around this day - only a series of statements. And this is the second year they have tried it.

The clips from Radio Prague sound bizarre out of context. They were part of a documentary we made in August 1988 using clips from Wolf Harranth and Arthur Cushen. I remember editing the clips. Here's the original.

Conclusions:

I don't believe in the future of radio as a separate pillar, especially international radio which has always had huge distribution and funding challenges. There is no World TV Day, nor World Internet Day.

Forget the campaigns. Focus on integrating radio into areas where it is a lifeline. Like Somalia, Sudan, or Northern Nigeria. All the rest is just nostalgia. 

Why UNESCO needs to get out of saving radio

When I was involved in setting up a website in 1994, I learned a lot from the early critics of web design. I'm delighted to see that Vincent Flanders site is still going strong, 17 years after designers seriously started playing with code to make pages easy to navigate. As he points out, some major organisations never learn. I agree that the best way to learn about what works is to comb the web looking for examples of what NOT to do. But that applies to more than just web design. I've been looking at the effects of the first World Radio Day, one week after it was celebrated on February 13th. Frankly, I think the official institutions, especially UNESCO, need to do a lot better. What they have done so far is a catalogue of embarrassment.
 

There's a website, of course, which looks like it was designed around 1994. No expense has been spared in putting this together to announce the creation of a radio prize for next year and to post a rather vague video from Guy Berger filmed outside a radio day conference in London. The whole website radiates a total misunderstanding of what the Internet can do to enhance great radio. It is lifeless and frankly a waste of time. I hope it didn't cost any money. The video views on the UNESCO Youtube Channel indicate that not many people have discovered this video. I'll bet even fewer than 100 watched it to the end. And then there's UNESCO's own radio day website which is also useless. Who on earth are they making this site
for?

 

 I did watch the UNESCO backed live radio event in London, which was billed as a workshop, but ended up as a series of talks. Once they were finished, the whole event collapsed after a remark made by Linj Manyozo that the elephant in the room is that television is radio's biggest threat. Sadly this wasn't challenged and the event dissolved. No conclusions. So ultimately no point in holding it. Reviewing all this, it's no wonder that the US has given up on UNESCO and it's ability to organize. The response to the withdrawal of funds by UNESCO Director Irina Bokova was to put up a video on YouTube, in a style that only confirms that UNESCO doesn't have its act together. These kinds of videos, which UNESCO clearly hopes will be taken up my mainstream media, clearly shows that UNESCO is totally out of touch with the media world. Even the links to her text are broken.


 

 So were there places that celebrated World Radio Day in the right way? Yes of course. SourceFabric in Prague and Berlin organised events that celebrated radio's practical, hybrid future. And the link between 720 ABC Perth and 720 WGN Chicago was original. What did they have in common? Their mediumwave frequency, 720 kHz. And an understanding of how audiences are changing. They clearly don't need a special day for that.