In 2024, radio is no longer just something we listen to; it is also increasingly a media that we watch. As proof, QUB radio, Quebecor’s digital radio, which last week became a cable TV channel. 98.5 FM, the number one station in Montreal, is also taking this turn by equipping its studios with cameras. There is no photo, radio is entering a new era, that of video. But will the video, like in the song, end up killing the radio stars?
“Of course not,” sneers Jean-Nicolas Gagné, general director of QUB radio. “I’ve been working in radio for 20 years. I must have been told 50 times that radio is going to die. We should not think that new technologies will replace a media that existed during the war. There will always be people who listen to the radio in the traditional way, on the airwaves,” recalls this former manager of Radio X in Quebec, in particular.
The fact remains that radio must also evolve and try to reach people who are not used to tuning to FM in their car. Today, there is more than one way to consume radio.
“Content should no longer be limited to a single channel. They must exist in multiple formats. The same interview, I’ll listen to it live on the radio if I’m in my car. I’m going to listen to it streaming in my headphones if I’m jogging. And I’ll listen to it on television if I’m ever at home, on my couch, at that time. More and more, we have to become multi-channel to adapt to people’s habits. It’s a global trend and Quebec is no exception,” explains the big boss of QUB.
QUB is, since last Thursday, a TV channel offered to cable subscribers. It replaces Yoopa, the specialized children’s channel that Quebecor took off the air. The digital radio offices were already equipped with cameras. Interview segments were regularly posted on social media. But the official move to TV still required improvements, notably changing the lighting.
For the rest, the content remains the same with the same headliners, such as Richard Martineau, Sophie Durocher and Mario Dumont. “It’s not TV like people are used to seeing on TVA or LCN. It’s still radio, but on TV. There is no report, no archive images,” explains Jean-Nicolas Gagné.
Quebec lagging behind
Launched with great fanfare in 2018, QUB radio seemed to be struggling to find its audience as a digital radio station. Would television be a plan B? “Even if the radio had been a bigger success than it is, we would still have gone to other platforms to broadcast it,” retorts the director of the channel.
What QUB offers is quite unique in Quebec, but in France, for example, it is almost the norm. There, cameras have been an integral part of radio studios for several years. It is possible to watch entire segments of most shows on social media. Some of them are even literally filmed in TV studios.
Here, the main players in the industry are much more cautious. On ICI Première, cameras have been entering the studios for several years. Short video clips are sometimes posted on social networks to promote content. But it is not possible, for example, to see major interviews in full in video format.
“For us, video is a discoverability tool. It’s a way to get people to listen to our content. It will evolve, but the priority remains radio. If cameras took up more space, it would change a lot of things. We should think about makeup and hair. Radio is not TV,” emphasizes Caroline Jamet, director of audio services at Radio-Canada.
Do not distort yourself
Music radio stations incorporated video a few years ago, but talk radio stations have been much slower to adopt it. 98.5 FM has equipped its studios with automated cameras in recent weeks. Cogeco’s regional stations, such as FM93, will also soon all have it.
During the spring, more and more excerpts from columns and interviews will be seen on the websites of Cogeco stations. “Yes, there is growth currently in audio with the advent of podcast. But we still know that the vast majority of content consumed on the Internet is video. Besides, it’s not for nothing that most podcasts are also filmed for video. For us, it’s a way to reach a new audience,” explains Jean-Sébastien Lemire, vice-president of digital strategy at Cogeco.
Several animators within the company have long been wary of the arrival of cameras in their studio. There were fears that the radio would be distorted. It was therefore necessary to find the right formula to make audio and video coexist.
“Audio remains our priority. The cameras should not take up all the space. These are automated cameras, there was no question of them being cameras like on television. Radio must retain its flexibility, which is its great strength. When something happens on the air, we are always able to move on quickly. It’s much more difficult on TV, which is a considerably heavier medium. We must maintain this agility despite the now presence of cameras,” hopes Jean-Sébastien Lemire.