National radio

I chose today’s topic when I found out our neighbours in the U.S. will celebrate National Radio Day tomorrow.

My fondest public radio moments always happen right before Christmas, when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) plays an on-air reading of Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince.

Through national radio, a reading like that can reach remote communities and be heard in cars even when all other stations turn to static noise. Unlike commercial radio stations full of ads, banter and tiny news snippets, national radio programming is as varied as its audiences.

National radio listeners explore comedy, science, news, books, culture, politics, all genres of music, sports, controversy and much more as the writers and radio personalities take the time to delve into deep discussions, interviews, phone-ins and exceptional, well-researched programming.

Who among us hasn’t:

• learned something about natural or physical sciences from Bob MacDonald, Jay Ingram or David Suzuki during a “Quirks and Quarks” episode? This is still one of CBC’s most popular programs and it pre-dates the visual antics of “Daily Planet” and Bill Nye.

• adjusted a watch or re-programmed a microwave or oven clock to reflect the exact time, as broadcast by national radio? In Canada, we have the National Research Council’s time signal and across the pond UK listeners hear Big Ben’s chimes peeling across the airwaves.

• felt strong emotions during a national radio broadcast? When Colin Firth delivered King George VI’s broadcast in The King’s Speech, he rallied a nation (admittedly, the same is true for movie fans globally). Imagine how people felt in 1939 when they found out about the war by listening to the King’s actual broadcast. Or how about a year earlier, when Orson Welles struck fear in the hearts of countless listeners when he narrated an adaptation of “The War of the Worlds” on the radio.

• cheered on a favourite hockey team? (Did you know Canadian games have been broadcast on national radio since 1931, back when the CBC was the Canadian National Railway Radio Network, a couple of years before it became the Canadian Radio Broadcast Commission, and decades before “Hockey Night in Canada” aired on Saturday evening TV.) I can say that my beloved Habs games came to me in the early days via radio, in French on Radio-Canada mind you, because Maple Leaf games seemed to dominate English CBC at the time.

In 1979, long before the Web, networked homes, iTunes, YouTube, satellite radio, podcasts and digital TV arrived, the Buggles recorded a song lamenting that “Video Killed the Radio Star.” Five years later, after the onslaught of MTV and the launch of MuchMusic, Freddie Mercury waxed nostalgic for radio and released “Radio Ga Ga.” Absurdly enough, many of us became familiar with the song through Queen’s music video below.

Despite the popularity of TV and the Internet, I am delighted that national radio broadcasters such as CBC, BBC and NPR continue to evolve their program offerings to reach broader audiences and take advantage of new technologies.

Tuning into national radio is        AWESOME!