I find that radio is a medium that ages well. She advances in time without too much difficulty, braving the storms, facing the dangers with a certain casualness.
Posted at 7:15 a.m.
How many times has his death been predicted? A valuable source of entertainment for Quebec families for three decades, the boards of his coffin were nailed down a thousand times when television made its appearance here in 1952.
What did the radio do? She tap-danced on the grave that was intended for her.
Exactly one hundred years after its appearance in Montreal, thanks to CKAC, then owned by The Press, radio must also come to terms with the extreme transformation of the media landscape that we are witnessing. But this maelstrom, as well as the proliferation of hertzian waves in recent decades, can do nothing about it: there are still just as many of us who remain faithful to this medium, and it continues to be so with us.
While newspapers are called upon to seriously redefine themselves to better navigate the digital sphere, and television is torn between content broadcast at set times and that which is distributed à la carte, radio continues to offer itself simply to listeners, touching their heart, stimulating their neurons, regardless of their age or social rank.
Over the past few years, I have published a few biographical works. I had to consult tons of archival documents, especially sound ones. It is striking to see that the way of doing radio in the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s differs little from that of today.
Apart from the sharp tone that public radio hosts liked to adopt, little has changed. Radio is speech. We can find new ways to speak, but we cannot reinvent the words, their strength and their emotion.
What has changed today is the personality of the voices, the rhythm of the broadcasts, it is also sometimes the lack of restraint and filter of those who express themselves. But for the rest, radio remains the Chanel tailor of the media world.
The radio moves forward in time and retains well-established habits. The concepts of mornings or homecoming hardly evolve. As they begin their day, listeners want to know what’s going on in their community, they wonder if they should bring their umbrella and if they’ll be stuck for 25 minutes on the Décarie highway.
Other listeners want us to change their minds and make them laugh. Finally, there are those who crave a comforting presence, good music and solid matter to feed their brains.
There is all the same something that has not aged well on the radio, and these are the advertisements. While some campaigns (from professional agencies) sometimes show originality, a good number give the impression of still being in the CJMS era. Poor copywriters who have to sell the red, yellow or blue label eight times a year.
Like TV, radio is no exception to the phenomenon of “free listening”. This is how the phenomenon of podcasts was born, a widely overused term, used in too many sauces. This concept, which offers the worst and the best, ranges from superbly made documentaries or series to comedian-hosted talk shows where vacuity and facile humor abound.
Today, everything is podcast. A program previously broadcast live and archived on a site becomes a podcast. We should stop getting upset about it. A podcast is nothing more than a moment of radio that you can listen to at your leisure.
Although I have become a fan of this flexible listening, nothing surpasses the incomparable joy of live. Besides, I stopped asking the hosts I meet if their show is pre-recorded, because when I learn that it is, my pleasure softens.
But the top of the top remains a live radio broadcast in front of an audience. Besides, I don’t understand why there aren’t more shows that are presented in this way.
I had a great time with some voices over the summer (greetings to Maxime Coutié and his team — special mention to Sarah Murphy who manages to make the traffic and the weather thrilling — and to Isabelle Craig from ICI Première, as well as Marie-Claude Lavallée and Philippe Cantin of 98.5 FM).
But as the radio is also a ritual, I’m going to slip into the autumn which is advancing quietly, rediscovering the voices and the intonations that I like to hear. As this season is marked by novelty, I will discover new ones. I will succumb to some, I will quickly divorce a few others.
In my kitchen or in my car, I will answer aloud to certain hosts, I will mentally correct the French mistakes of a few others. I’ll jot down a book or record suggestion from a columnist, I’ll break the sugar on another’s back at a dinner with friends.
I’ll turn on the radio when I need a presence, I’ll turn it off when it’s chaos and I feel like I’ve been kicked out of the group. I will be ruthless with a new show before telling myself that I should give it a second chance.
And then, there will come this moment of grace when a host or hostess will submit a fair and relevant question to a guest who will respond with an equally fair and relevant answer. I will tell myself that this meeting had to happen. And that this dialogue, like all sensible dialogue, is the marrow of the radio.
Why change that? Why would anyone want to destroy what makes us human?
There are so many things in life that try to make us believe otherwise.