Radio's obituary, it now appears, may have been premature. It’s reassuring that radio has absorbed new technologies in the last decade to emerge stronger. The power of the human voice can never fade away

It crackles, waffles and at times makes garbled noises. But when it reaches your ears, it fires up your imagination. An invention that broke language and cultural barriers and melted geographical boundaries much before any other technology. It globalised humanity and humanised the world. It served its masters voice and has been shaping global geo-political contours. If not, for the World Radio Day celebrations, this past week, the existence of the humble radio would have largely gone unnoticed.

Increasingly, radio’s decline from our collective imagination is evident. Radio, for today’s generation, has merely been reduced to ‘driveway moments’. The real question is: Is the radio still cool and relevant? And can it survive in the swipe culture and binge-watching era that we today live in?

Having practiced radio as a broadcaster for many years, I still remember the primitive days of working in the studios on analog technology, spooled tapes, bulky vintage consoles with vacillating dials, the whirring cassette players, the scratchy vinyl discs, the clumsy process of managing tapes for linear editing and other works of toil — all part and parcel of the old school of radio broadcasting, the phase which lasted till much of the late 1990s. You needed to have both the physical agility of a gymnast and the mental balancing act of a trapeze artist to manage.

Once you are inside the sound-proof studios, and the heavy door thuds to a close, there is nobody else, but a giant clock staring at you. As the countdown begins, you frantically rehearse your news headlines one more time; arrange your programme script and material in order; stack up the music and recordings; plonk on the seat; clear your throat; take a deep breath; keep a measured distance from the microphone; put your headphones on; and shut the world out of your head and then release the faders to go live. Boom! You pitch a perfect opening line in a voice that the world has been waiting to hear. While at the same time you overstretch your arms to keep your fingers ready to press the record player button to play that favourite song of your listener as you near the end of your pep talk.

You seem to be suddenly propelled into a high-velocity orbit, gliding in mysterious dark spaces on the airwaves up in the sky. You fire-up the airwaves with your voice, tone and modulations, and pour over your heart through the microphone in a virtual embrace with the audience. You imagine shaking hands and looking at the smiling faces of your mysterious listeners receiving you on their radio’s, as if it was a one-on-one conversation. All of this appeared like a high purpose. To comfort the people, to give them company in their solitude, to entertain them, to educate and inform them and have a dialogue with them.

Radio has powerfully delivered social, cultural, political and linguistic value in the years gone by. Broadcasters, such as the All India Radio, BBC World Service, Voice of America and others became the harbinger of the golden era of broadcasting. International broadcaster’s multilingual, multi-format, information-rich and mind-expanding programmes have had widespread loyal audience across the world. But the era of human communications across the border and the romance with the airwaves seem to have waned with the advent of satellite television and digital media overtaking our lives.

Digital technology ushered in many welcome changes in the broadcasting industry. In the early 2000, FM radio brought superior and high-fidelity sound like never before. The ease with which you could record programming, the simple drag and drop function, fluidity of non-linear editing and mixing made studio environment and programming less stressful and a bit breezier.

However, today, the talk is cheap. Radio has got confined to very hyper local geographical boundaries and at best reduced to the purpose of seeing you through the grime and sweat of your daily commutes. There are no higher purposes anymore. Today’s radio seems to be rinsed of these very values of educating, entertaining and elevating the tastes of the audience. Urban and commercial bias and the monopoly of glib-talk and overly saturated Bollywood centric shows points to a programmatic dead end.

So, why this medium, with no pay wall, free to air, instant, easily accessible, mobile friendly, low-cost, mind expanding, multi-channel, carrying multitude of national and international languages and voices, offering multi perspective programming and deeply personal device that you can snuggle around your pillow, is completely out of favour among the younger generation?

For one, the current generation is brought up on a heavy dose of television and social media. The satellite radio folded up way too soon. However, there is still some hope for radio’s adoption among the youth with the culmination of digital and convergence technologies. Thanks to the Internet today, we can experience a galaxy of radio stations streaming their feeds on the Internet from remote corners of the world sans the legacy handicaps of the analog radio. You could listen to a small-town Italian radio station playing opera, to an American radio station playing blues, folk, jazz and country music or enjoy the British broadcasters who can’t get enough of their radio talk shows.

When so much variety is available, why should Indian broadcasters shy away from carrying their feed both analog and digitally and make it accessible to the wider world online? Already, a great deal is happening in this space. But what will earn the India radio stations patronage is programming innovation. Instead of just relegated to filmy music, there is enough space available to try out diverse genres. It is just that commercial interests at times come in the way of risking a new format and shows.

The reason why we see so much of lazy stuff happening on our Indian radio today is because no matter which station you dial into, it is more of the same. Radio is a medium that you listen to in the background, while doing something else. Isn’t that cool? It demands nothing from you except your aural senses. In return, it so effortlessly penetrates your heart and minds.

The magical power of human voice, words, music and narration ignites imagination. The power of voice can never lose relevance. In the last decade, radio has emerged stronger by adopting to emerging technologies and if diversification and innovation on the programming front takes place, radio broadcasting will remain an important communication force to reckon within the 21st century.

(The writer is a communications and management professional with cross-sectoral experience)