A New Radio Experience

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La Radio has been a constant companion all my life. And having reached the second decade of the 21^st century, it’s surprising how much I still rely on the radio for news, information, and entertainment. In fact, you’ll probably laugh at the irony that for a so called expert in new technologies, radio is still king.

A few months ago, I joined a group where listeners of a nightly sports talk-radio show in Spain respond in real time to the broadcast, by posting their comments on the shows’ facebook page. I expected that only a few hard-core enthusiasts, like yours truly, would spend their free time “talking back to the radio”, as I call it. Happily, I found a vibrant bunch of men and women that became part of my listening experience, many of whom I now call friends.  This social website phenomenon may not have changed how we listen, but it has clearly changed the way we respond and interact with our favorite media.

And who are these people that, like me, seem to have no have a life, you ask?  Well, they are a cross section of society. Men and women, some single and others married, young and not so young, white collar and blue collar professionals, conservatives and progressives. But all of us share a common passion. We love to listen.

Like most Spanish men of my generation, I grew up listening to the nightly radio sports shows that can be heard daily. Nearly of all us listened on a small am/fm transistor placed by our beds. More than a nightly routine, it was a rite of passage from adolescence into adulthood that many of us embraced. Every day we waited for bedtime to listen to the latest rumors, controversies and interviews with our idols. It was a tradition that was passed from our grandfathers to our fathers and then to us.

Today’s generation of radio listeners, thanks to technology and innovation, has many more listening options. Like many young listeners, I also prefer to listen on my iphone. By clicking an application on my phone that automatically opens an audio stream to the broadcast, I can listen anywhere an internet connection is available. And since listening from another continent is made much easier by subscribing to the shows’ podcast, I can again fall asleep while listening to my favorite radio show. And thus, an old traditon is kept alive by a new technology.

Author’s note:

Since writing this article about a year ago, I, along with a wonderful group of friends, have begun to broadcast a radio show. The show is called La Lambretta de los Deportes and it is streamed to the world via the internet. In my next post I explore how my on-air experience has given new passion and changed, for better and worse, my love affair with La Radio.

Etiquetas: Eduardo Pérez Suárez, La Lambretta, Radio-Opinión., Technology