Watching the Play on the Wireless

From another thread on listening to the radio I was reminded by someone that radio drama was a really important part of life for me even after TV had usurped prime position in the living space. For several years I lived without a TV and radio offered so much more than music for company.

It's a cliché, but the pictures are better on radio (for those of us blessed with good imagination) and drama filled many a Saturday evening when I was alone in a new town and yet to find friends.

In the UK, BBC Radio 4 still supplies hours of drama and what is now called a 'soap' in the 7 days a week serial The Archers but even commercial radio (Capital) had some back in the 70s when it started. These days, most commercial stations all sound the same and rely on automated playout for cheap ways to reach ears (and even BBC local radio 🤨).

I wonder what the situation is in other countries? I'm sure someone on here will let us know if there are podcasts that do drama.

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ArishMell · 70-79, M

Many of the UK's commercial, "local" radio stations sound the same because they are the same. The once-local companies have become absorbed in larger ones slinging together pop play-lists that won't frighten the advertising-agencies, in small central studios. They then sell or otherwise distribute them to the local broadcasters who attach some local news and advertisements.

Looking at the listings, the two or three "classical" music stations are not much better, sticking mainly to the familiar.

Of the commercials:

None nuture new talent.
None stage live programmes for broadcast.
None commission new creations, especially the more avant-garde material.
None have their own orchestras, drama and literature departments, arts-critics, current-affairs analysts, investigative-journalists, science and other specialist reporters, etc.
None are interested in anything that rewards the listener more than the channel-clicking hearer, nor in treating the listener as an intelligent person.

BBC Radio Four covers a huge range, including but by no means only drama; while Radio Three airs a far greater range of music than any other BBC channel and probably any other station. Sadly, on the other hand Radio One has shrunk to current charts and dance-music, while Radio Two is now mainly just "middle-of-the-road" pop. Radio Five was set up as primarily a sports channel, so mainly football, some cricket, lots of chatting about football, perhaps a bit of rugby, and football.

...

The commercial stations' artistic and creative decay is supported by the newpapers, of which most are too lazy or self-interested to list radio programmes beyond titles or times, or not at all.

My pseudo-local newspaper - though it is edited and printed locally, and covers some local matters and interests - is part of the nation-wide "Newsquest" group. Its quality and value have plummeted in the last few years, and I date a lot of the damage to Newsquest's acquisition by an American outfit aptly called "Gannet".

Its Saturday supplement is mainly TV listings (radio and digital TV), and it deliberately omits any radio listings at all; presumably by policy set in Gannet's US offices.

FreddieUK · 70-79, M

@ArishMell Spot on. One mitigation. I believe Classic FM does support some orchestras and choirs that already exist, but obviously nothing like the BBC. Radio 3 is now my music station.

Local press round here is probably the same as where you are excepting the obituaries and local classifieds (what's left of them).