Loading

Industry body Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) claimed in a February report that just under half of 10-17-year-olds and a third of 18-24-year-olds listen to commercial radio daily (by comparison, among 55-64-year-olds the figure is two-thirds).

That may all be true as far as rating agency GfK’s survey sample of 16,000 people nationally is concerned, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that for many younger listeners radio is becoming a medium of last resort.

“The only time you’d catch me listening to radio is in the car,” says Ruby Vidor, a 23-year-old musician from Melbourne, who discovers new music through TikTok, YouTube, Spotify recommendations and friends. “And the only radio station you’ll ever catch me playing in the car is Smooth FM.”

She puts that down to the fascination with all things vintage, and says announcers yakking away on radio is a turn-off. “If I want the chatter I go straight to podcasts.”

Vidor is aware, though, of the paradox of an emerging artist who no longer listens to the kind of radio most likely to give her airtime.

“We musicians desperately seek out the validation of a radio station because historically that was where you got your break,” she says. “But the more I dissect the way I interact with music discovery as a consumer the more I am shifting my approach. Yes, radio has its place but not like it used to. If you were any kind of radio boss trying to reach me, I probably wouldn’t listen. We go to radio to feel nostalgic, not to discover new music.”

The ABC’s Loader says it’s wrong to think of Triple J purely as a radio play. She points to the fact that much of the network’s audience comes to it via sub-sites such as Unearthed, Like a Version and Live at the Wireless, plus social media. “It is the number one Australian radio station on Facebook (1.3 million followers), Instagram (844,000 followers), Spotify (450,000 followers) and YouTube (1.59 million subscribers), where millions view our content,” she says. “Our podcasts are some of the most listened to at the ABC.”

There’s little doubt though that this fracturing of distribution is changing what radio means to the young. It diminishes the role of the DJ or content director as tastemaker, inhibits (for better or worse) the identification of a station and its style with particular sub-cultures, and makes it infinitely harder for an emerging artist to access a sizeable market.

Still, the idea that a radio network is no longer just a radio network has also been wholeheartedly embraced by start-up CADA (pronounced kay-da). Launched just two months ago, the youth-focused platform, which is part of the ARN stable, broadcasts on the FM dial in Sydney only, but nationally over the DAB+ digital spectrum. It also creates content specifically for social media platforms (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook) and podcasts, and considers these not so much spin-offs as core product.

“We thought it was important to create content in the places 18-29s were consuming content, and in a format that matches those places,” says CADA general manager Emily Copeland, who came to the job from a background in film and video production.

She says broadcast radio “is so important for discovery”, but adds that so is video. Presenters Flex and Froomes film their show, and then audio is extracted to create the radio iteration, while short video clips are posted to social. “We’re building a media ecosystem so audiences can consume short pieces in different formats,” says Copeland.

The challenge for radio, says CRA boss Ford Ennals, “is to always keep the content relevant for that age group, because they move around”.

Loading

To that end, broadcasters are increasingly developing podcast content – consumption of which is measured, but not included in the radio ratings – audio-on-demand content, and new multimedia services like CADA.

“The key thing is to keep the content relevant,” Ennals says.

The young audience for radio hasn’t gone away, he insists. “You just need to make sure you’re talking to them in the way they want to be talked to, and giving them the content they want.”

Email the author at kquinn@theage.com.au, or follow him on Facebook at karlquinnjournalist and on Twitter @karlkwin