I agree with swathes of what you've said here. The distribution issue in particular. I have different views about the personalities and what makes radio great and also the notion (which you didn't say directly but which comes across to me) that a tech company reinventing radio won't ever succeed or that some have a rose tinted view of radio of the past. If a local character, a local personality decides at some point in the future that rather than sending a showreel into their local station they're going to set themselves up on Amazon's Amp or whatever..then surely at that point, radio would be under threat? If the next generation of radio listeners don't see radio as special - it's it's just 'Global Player' or 'BBC Sounds', and they don't have that relationship, then surely it's much easier for them to hop over onto one of those tech company platforms? Is your whole thing about 'what makes radio special' really based on Capital, Hits and Smooth of the last 10 years or is it built on Wogan, Evans, Moyles, Toolan and a very different style of radio which young people today just don't experience? Today's radio is just like a tech company. Isn't that what the industry wants?
I agree with swathes of what you've said here. The distribution issue in particular. I have different views about the personalities and what makes radio great and also the notion (which you didn't say directly but which comes across to me) that a tech company reinventing radio won't ever succeed or that some have a rose tinted view of radio of the past. If a local character, a local personality decides at some point in the future that rather than sending a showreel into their local station they're going to set themselves up on Amazon's Amp or whatever..then surely at that point, radio would be under threat? If the next generation of radio listeners don't see radio as special - it's it's just 'Global Player' or 'BBC Sounds', and they don't have that relationship, then surely it's much easier for them to hop over onto one of those tech company platforms? Is your whole thing about 'what makes radio special' really based on Capital, Hits and Smooth of the last 10 years or is it built on Wogan, Evans, Moyles, Toolan and a very different style of radio which young people today just don't experience? Today's radio is just like a tech company. Isn't that what the industry wants?
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-shonky