What IS "Radio"?

Welcome back to RadioFar-Far, and hello if you’re a first time visitor, especially if you've found me through the recommendation of Radio User magazine.

As I’m writing this on the 21st December, I might as well fit the Season’s Greetings bit in here too- as no doubt every radio station in the UK will be doing in some way over the next five days. Their efforts will either give you aural indigestion or touch your soul deeply, but I hope you have a peaceful and enjoyable Christmas, however you spend it and whatever you’re listening to.

I suppose these words might not chime like interval signal bells much if you’re reading them after Christmas 2006, but then, hey, you can have Christmas radio all year round these days, thanks to the worldwide web- but can internet listening really be called ‘radio’? That’s our other topic for today; read on, dear listeners (as Radio Tirana would so charmingly have addressed you in years past).

Perhaps radio offers a better way of enjoying Christmas than the rather boring modern diet of TV. It’s certainly my own preferred choice over the goggle box or even the Google tube while I’m wrapping pressies and putting decorations up. BBC 7 (www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7) is a great place for a spot of nostalgia, and they’ll be doing their bit with well-loved vintage Christmas specials from Hancock and others who use radio’s power as a vehicle for laughter so well. Last Tuesday’s edition, where Bill Kerr was cruelly informed at the age of 34 that there’s no Santa Claus (how could they-everyone knows he’s real!), was a classic indeed. Imagination can create far more humorous scenes than a camera lens ever can- and who needs CGI to create the most bizarre seasonal scenes and effects? Mind and ear do it so much better.

However, my personal favourite radio station this time of the year is Classic FM which captures the aural essence of December so well. It’s become required listening in my household on Christmas Day, and especially in the car on festive journeys. It’s usually the same programmes every year, but that doesn’t matter- like the turkey and the Christmas pud, the more predictable the better.

Rather more eclectic though are the weird and wonderful Christmas-themed “radio stations” you can now listen to all year round –if you’re mad enough or sad enough, that is. Guardian Unlimited (www.Guardian.co.uk- simple free registration required to read most articles) this week has been taking a look at some internet radio stations and on the 20th December their pop pages looked at two stations where it’s perpetually Christmas- almost a radio Groundhog Day, I guess. Always Christmas has a free listing on live365.com, one of the leading providers of internet radio services, while Christmas Remixed lurks at I might give them a try when I’ve had one too many drams on New Year’s Day perhaps. But Christmas music and programming any time after Twelfth Night- or Candlemas on 2nd February if you’re really observant- isn’t really cricket. Having said that, despite Rupert Murdoch’s best efforts to monopolise the media, you’ll probably find a radio station somewhere or other carrying cricket commentary most of the year! The very English Test Match Special on BBC Radio 4 Long Wave and 5 Live Sports Extra (and on-line in the UK only) will be where the most die-hard fans might still be hiding in the small hours of Boxing Day morning with a bottle or two of a decent English brew, even though the Ashes are already lost after their brief sojourn in England’s hands again.

In the past the BBC World Service on Short Wave, or other local broadcasters on Medium, Long or VHF wavebands would be the natural haunt for sports enthusiasts or indeed anybody looking for a local perspective on news and events in other countries as well as the world music scene before that garnered a whole music category of its own. “Radio” was the medium of choice, and the illuminated ‘dials’ of many a receiver from the thirties onwards bore testimony to this. All it took was a twiddle of the knobs and there you were in Algeria or Australia, Zealand (New) or Zetland. Although often thwarted by the vagaries of propagation and electrical interference, there was a wonderful air about it, if you’ll pardon the pun, to be able to drop in on foreign parts thanks to a freely available signal wafting through the air, wirelessly.

Today, however, the wireless is more likely to be providing your home network than your radio network. The development of the internet and cheap, affordable audio editing and processing technology has made it theoretically possible for everyone to ‘broadcast”. But is this really radio?

I was thinking about this recently when some members of the British DX Club were commenting on Radio Luxembourg, so long the occupants of that famous wavelength 208, becoming essentially a web-based station. They were arguing that the new service is hardly worthy of the name associated with the pop and personality based service which served the UK using transmitters in the small principality in the dark ages when commercial radio was illegal in the UK- even before the pirates of the high metres took to the wavebands.

I checked a number of on-line dictionaries to see how they defined “radio” and, for that matter, “broadcast”. The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary seemed at first reasonable with its primary definition:

"a piece of electronic equipment used for listening to radio broadcasts"

Except for two things. Firstly, a computer or other digital device which can receive internet audio programmes is clearly also a “piece of electronic equipment”, as much as a radio receiver making use of an aerial and assorted components to do much the same job, as it has done for the last century. And saying that a radio is used for listening to “radio broadcasts” is really like one of those unhelpful definitions which sends you searching off for another word’s meaning!

So what is a “broadcast” then? The verb offers little clarification:

to send out a programme on television or radio:
Radio Caroline used to broadcast from a boat in the North Sea.
The tennis championship is broadcast live to several different countries.
FIGURATIVE I'm leaving but please don't broadcast (= tell everyone) the fact.



It’s nice at least that they use Radio Caroline as an example! As a noun, it merely offers “a television or radio programme”- but should that now be amended to say “a television, radio or internet programme” .

The crux of the matter is, I suppose, is radio now defined by the means of distribution – whether that be wireless or via cables and connections- or as a kind of collective noun for a collection of assorted words and sounds collectively making a programme. And hence, a radio station is no longer a building where programmes are put together, or the transmitter that distributes their signals, but can even be a “virtual” broadcasting house. It’s not getting any easier, is it!

I suppose in the end it’s a case of accepted meanings with this word as much as any other. Personally, I’ve yet to grasp why the small circles with dots in the middle on many a web form are known as “radio” buttons, but I can see a certain resemblance to the tuning knobs on those classic old radio receivers I mentioned earlier. Maybe that too is the reason why the latest technology will enable you, with some irony, to combine wireless technology- your home IT network’s distribution system which uses “radio frequencies”- actual electromagnetic pulses through the ether- with a connection to an internet service provider which effectively becomes the transmitting station.

Maybe too, Cambridge’s third definition is the most helpful one in the internet age:

"the system or work of broadcasting sound programmes for the public to listen to"

None of these useages actually limits "radio" to the signals we receive through the medium which pioneers also struggled to define and so termed the "ether". By that token, perhaps we should not be so quick to dismiss material which is clearly a broadcast, obviously a sound programme and intended for a wide audience and often comes from a distant place- but not necessarily via a signal distributed via the Radio Frequency spectrum!


That’s what I think, anyway. Now, what are your views? Hit that comment button (not sure whether it’s a radio button!) below now for your feedback, or e-mail me via radio AT marksavage.org.uk (please replace AT with the @ symbol when writing).

Next time, maybe we’ll look at what is truly DX listening- now there’s another can of worms, or is it better looked at as two tin cans connected with a piece of string?

Have a merry listening Christmas, and you might like to visit my other blog:
www.mas59.blogspot.com.