This is not radio…

...it's a blog. Even this recording of me reading this blog - I reckon - isn't radio: (Audio Credit: Martin Cooper (c)) But out in the far reaches of the Internet (I'm not convinced it needs a capital letter) there's a forum where the meaning of the word 'radio' is still being thrashed out. The … Continue reading This is not radio… →

“…Ha, but my life is but a box of wormgears.”

The musings of Marvin the Paranoid Android seem to sum up neatly some of the trickier bits of the lives we ourselves lead. (The quote is from Life, the Universe and Everything (1982), London:Pan Books, p. 45). Douglas Adams, the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide, created a genre-busting cross-platform cultural epic in the late 1970s … Continue reading “…Ha, but my life is but a box of wormgears.” →

Tech determines it…

I love technology. I love the way it shapes my life. I love valves, diodes, transistors, microprocessors, plastic casings, rotary tone controls and sliding faders. Does all this stuff determine the culture around me? My answer (in a rather shy retiring way when talking about this amongst some academics) is yes: I'm a technological determinist. … Continue reading Tech determines it… →

Some of my favourite presenters…

Then, when I became a professional broadcaster in 1982 there were colleagues who I enjoyed both listening to and making programmes with. Still do, in fact. At the BBC World Service in the late 1980s there was the Geoffrey Stern, working as a presenter alongside his London School of Economics lecturing job, who made my … Continue reading Some of my favourite presenters… →

The soundtrack of your life…

Radio is a personal medium. It's my medium. It's also been the medium of the baby boomer generation, of which I am one. Radio, by the end of the 20th century, had become for many who were born in the two decades after the end of WW2 part of the soundtrack of their lives. Tanja … Continue reading The soundtrack of your life… →

Automaton…

What is your attitude to pre-recorded radio shows? I spent the 1980s and 1990s presenting live radio shows, so they're very much in my blood. However, technology has changed enormously in the past few years. I think it's altered what 'radio' is. Let me start with an example. In Reidsville, North Carolina, in the USA … Continue reading Automaton… →

From the archives: September 1989

How to write about radio, about the experience of listening? Here's a piece from an industry trade paper, in September 1989. It's a review of a tape of a live show I'd recorded onto cassette in June of that year and then posted (by Royal Mail) to the magazine. How else was a journalist in … Continue reading From the archives: September 1989 →

From the archives: 9 April 1992

Here's the start of BBC Radio York's election night results programme in 1992. An example of local live reporting... I'd gathered up all those clips during the course of the campaign trail to build this audio montage. It was a busy night for the BBC Radio York team, reporting live from every parliamentary constituency count … Continue reading From the archives: 9 April 1992 →