In celebration of radio

Just about everyone in the media is guilty warns Raymond Snoddy – as indeed are many consumers. We are besotted with television and even film come the Oscars and Baftas time of the year. And although we absorb more than one billion hours of the stuff in a single quarter the dear old radio doesn’t get a look in most of the time. But it’s time to celebrate…

When radio is not actually ignored it is in danger of being taken for granted; something that is just there.

The headlines are simply missing apart from once a quarter when the Rajar listening figures come out. Even these are usually reported as Chris Evans up or down (and actually he’s doing rather nicely on 9.5 million listeners since you ask.)

You also get brief flurries of attention in the City pages when a Global-GMG consolidation gets under way. But it’s small stuff in the scale of things, totally wiped away by John Malone’s £15 billion takeover of the entire UK cable industry in the shape of Virgin Media.

Part of the problem is that there are just too few stories, a shortage of scandals and the absence of crises and collapse. Radio just keeps rolling along, usually in a modestly upward direction.

Newspapers are fighting for their economic lives and still reeling from the effects of phone hacking, Leveson and politicians with an inadequate grasp of the principles of press freedom. Along the way it’s great copy.

Television has, if anything, even better scandals with the poisonous state of affairs in BBC management unveiled by Nick Pollard and the ramifications of Jimmy Savile’s activities will roll on for years.

How can radio compete with any of that for public attention?

Poor old radio hasn’t managed a scandal of any sort in the UK since the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross affair and that involved a couple of crass and insensitive phone calls with not even the remotest chance of bringing down a director-general. Without Australian pranksters intent on invading Royal privacy the medium would be nearly bereft of headlines.

And when the BBC needs to find a safe and uncontroversial haven for Helen Boaden, the former head of BBC News, why they send her to radio, though as a former controller of Radio 4 she will greatly enjoy her exile.

Matters are much worse for the commercial radio sector.

With so few headlines available for radio there is always a great danger that the elephant in the room – the BBC – will hog the lot.

The fact remains that there can’t be too much wrong with a country where 7 million people start their day, and often have their agenda set, by the Today programme. And there is plenty of choice for those who want to ease their way into the day in a more gentle manner.

So, on the principle that in this case no news is actually good news, let’s hear it for radio.

Don’t forget that 90% of the population listens to radio for an average of 22 hours a week on a growing number of devices. And try to avoid, if you possibly can, being seduced by the latest technological gimmicks.

Or as Mark Barber, planning director of the Radio Advertising Bureau put it in Marketing recently: “the best advice for any marketer bewildered by the cacophony of ‘next big things’ clamouring for attention in 2013 is to stay focused on the big goals for brands and allow critical-mass consumer behaviour to guide your media decisions in delivering these.”

Obviously the man was talking about radio.

RAB has some decent numbers to play with – and numbers that the newspaper industry would be very pleased to achieve – with the third consecutive rise in advertising revenue to a total of £552.7 million in 2012.

Part of the growth – +3.8% last year – is coming from the major supermarkets and they might have to do some major brand building exercises later this year when the cheval affair is over.

Interesting it is the telly, in the shape of Sky, which has emerged as the biggest rival to the Government as the biggest spender on radio.

As for consolidation there is a good case to be made for a smaller number of large companies as long as they are wise enough to show some respect for local identities – something that really only amounts to good business.

The presence of the BBC means there are unlikely to be plurality issues – as long as the Corporation is not allowed to duck its responsibilities to provide a well-funded local radio network.

We are, however, still in a mess over media competition issues in the UK. The provisional findings of the Competition Commission, based on the usual tight definition of the radio market, show “a substantial lessening of competition” in the East Midlands, North Wales, Greater Manchester, the North East, South and West Yorkshire and Central Scotland. Everywhere in fact apart from the West Midlands and London.

Meanwhile, Internet advertising continues to rise inexorably and the giants of the international game can avoid mundane matters such as corporation tax. But at least the Commission’s findings are only provisional.

In the continuing absence of juicy radio scandals it’s up to the RAB to ensure that radio is neither ignored nor taken for granted amid the clamour of the new.

The Britain Loves Radio campaign on the back of the listening figures is a step in the right direction. Plans to increase the frequency of radio advertising awards from quarterly to monthly will also help. The ad industry loves awards.

The commercial radio industry may still have to beat its drum rather more loudly to get a fair hearing in a crowded media marketplace, not least in the endless battle with the BBC.