Today the world celebrates one of the longest-running media, loved and followed by the public. It is in fact World Radio Day, the World Radio Day proclaimed in 2011 by UNESCO, and adopted in 2012 by the General Assembly of the United Nations as an international day. The date is therefore that of February 13, a day that is dedicated all over the world to celebrate a means of communication that is profoundly different from that of its origins, but has not changed its name since March 5, 1896, Guglielmo Marconi, presented the first provisional patent application, with the number 5028 and with the title “Improvements in telegraphy and related equipment”. The radio that we celebrate today is a radio that has become more and more digital, that is ubiquitous, transformed more and more often into a function present in other devices than into an independent instrument, but that precisely because of its adaptability, for its natural vocation for innovation, it is very present in the everyday life of billions of people all over the world. Indeed, it could be, by slightly exaggerating in reality, that all listening to music today, through playlists and streaming platforms, has become a “radio” type of listening, even if the concept of radio has mainly remained, certainly not shape.
If once the most popular instrument for listening to the radio were the small transistor radios that could be carried in your pocket, today the smartphone is the newest means through which the radio reaches the ears of the people and in particular of the very young generations. Each radio has its own app, or it can be reached through many apps dedicated to collecting the ‘signals’ of broadcasters from all over the world, and in this way, through the Internet, the radio has also lost its local dimension to become global. And the web has allowed the birth of millions, literally, new radios that using dedicated software have opened their transmissions without the need for antennas and radio signals, without repeaters, broadcasters that are born in the bedrooms of fans and broadcast all over the world. With the same logic, Apple Music 1 was born, which we define for convenience as a radio station, because it has kept the format of the radio, with music, conductors, entertainment, information, insights, but which broadcasts all over the world 24 hours a day, and it has more than one channel, since there are no limited ‘frequencies’ to occupy but only the immense and irrepressible space of the web. Up to the maximum of Accuradio, which has more than a thousand channels at the same time, which globally broadcast every possible musical genre or theme. But if those of Apple Music 1 are transmissions with conductors in flesh and blood, those of Accuradio are only long musical selections, with the particularity, however, of not being general from algorithms but from programmers who ‘by hand’ choose every single song for each channel.
Algorithms, in fact, are gaining ground more and more in the radio universe, obviously with strengths and weaknesses. Each streaming platform uses them to ‘personalize’ the listening of each individual user, trying to ‘know’ tastes and habits, to be able to refine the proposals also according to the times of the day when the radio is listened to, calibrating music already known and appreciated with novelties to discover. If this is in many ways convenient (I listen to the music I want, when I want, as I want) it is also evident that the space of knowledge is largely limited, the algorithm will tend to make me listen to things that they know or that resemble those I know, limiting the ‘surprise’ effect that human radio programming allows, including the risk of listening to music we don’t like.
Of course, even the figure of the radio ‘DJ’ has changed a lot over the years, today the vast majority of radio hosts are made up of talented entertainers, who talk about the most disparate topics and ensure that the limited time they have for talking between a song and another is fun, curious, maybe even able to stimulate the participation of the public. Yes, because the radio has greatly accentuated its “social” characteristics from the advent of social networks onwards, it has become a tool for building communities, but not only the classic ones, linked around themes or belonging, but also temporary ones, virtual, able to live a few minutes, the duration of a broadcast, and then melt back into the air or the web. The radio has been integrating more and more with social networks, with Instant messaging apps, with the use of voice messages that are increasingly used in broadcasting, making listeners directly participate in the programs. Nothing new, of course, if we think of the glories of Radio Anch’Io or the open microphone of Radio Radicale, but in a widespread and constant dimension that has changed many of the rules of the game. And, returning to DJs, their role as music selectors has also changed, given that the main radio networks have a single programmer who decides what the “sound” of the broadcaster is and chooses the songs that each transmission must and can transmit. in order to characterize the radio programming in a decisive way.
And then there are podcasts, which are not radios but are very similar to them and which are becoming a habit for millions of listeners, a type of ‘on demand’ radio that has gone beyond the logic of programming, broadcasting times, to leave free listeners to listen to their favorite broadcasts in any place and at any time, through smartphones, tablets, computers, smart speakers or televisions. It is the format of ‘spoken’ radio that takes its revenge on music, podcasts allow you to tell stories, to give substance to narratives, to share knowledge, to deepen topics or news, even if there is a large share of podcasts entertainment, and fictional ones are also gradually gaining ground, recovering the old form of ‘radio plays’. And to all this is added the frontier of DAB, which brings listening in high quality, allows the birth of thematic radios, returns to homes and cars with a different listening, not only that of live radio but also the more specialized one. for enthusiasts. In short, the radio, the radios, in all its contemporary forms, are experiencing not only a successful season but also of great innovation.
The theme of this year’s World Radio Day celebration is that of trust, with the slogan “Yes to radio, yes to trust”, to underline how radio, in our days, is still a reliable platform, a fundamental element for information, for culture. In fact, the “Radio and Trust” theme of the 2022 edition is articulated around the relationship of trust with radio journalism, to encourage the production of independent and high quality content and the use of verifiable information, shared in the public interest; that with accessibility, to satisfy the information needs of all listeners and to be a catalyst for integration and social participation and for people with disabilities; and the one with the sustainability of radio stations, to ensure competitiveness in the media market, transforming public involvement into financial sustainability. The official hashtag of the initiative is #WorldRadioDay. On the official website www.worldradioday.org a lot of information and copyright free material are available on the initiative.