In the summer of 1895 the first useful radio signals were being transmitted over a picturesque hill in Pontecchio by a young Italian engineer, Guglielmo Marconi. Sure, his playlist was light - just a dash or a dot - no traffic or weather updates, no music or news. So the early ratings books were uninspiring. But those scratchy Morse code dots and dashes led us, eventually, to today’s non-stop blocks of rock.
I’m addicted to radio … and not just my own station. Summers are defined by the comforting drone of the cricket commentary and my early morning drive to work would be empty without ye-oldie radio serials like Cattle Man and The Castlereagh Line … the lifeblood of truckies and lactating women the country over.
Everyone has a soundtrack from the big moments of their lives - good and bad - delivered by radio. Songs get welded in, a familiar radio voice defines your time.
Having worked in both radio and television, I’ve found nothing connects you directly to your audience like radio. It’s a conversation. Television performance always feels isolated. Even with a studio audience, it’s not inclusive, you’re not really sharing. On radio you can’t sustain a pretend character, it’s all real.
Radio had the most impact for me on the morning of September 12th 2001. I was on air at 6am with Andrew Denton. The awful images of 911 were, horribly, only hours old. I’d been up most of the night before, locked to the TV, watching the world change. I had a four-month-old baby and this was my first day back at work after maternity leave. It was a paralysing event that was still developing. What could we possibly say on a day like this?
Our listeners took over. We just talked to them. It's what radio does best. We took calls all morning from people who had seen the pictures but could make no sense of what they meant. The words you read in the sales brochures are true - good radio is community orientated, relevant, instant and, on that day at least, therapeutic. For everyone.
We stayed on air until midday. It was very powerful radio. Nothing to do with Andrew or me - we were just incidental that day. It was powerful because it was what radio was built for - a conversation.
A radio station’s on-air talent has one recurring nightmare - that one day, the boss is going to say: “Guys, it’s been decided that we’re just going to play the music and run the ads. No more hosts. Whippet, Togsman, Prawno and the night guy - whassisname - you’re all fired.”
I hope it never happens. The human touch, the beating of the tribal drum, is too important. Even Marconi moved on from that first concept. Eventually the dots and dashes started answering back.
Amanda Keller
Jonesy & Amanda In The Morning
WSFM Sydney
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