Radio sux

Hi,

(Said with feeling) Radio is a creative wasteland, a garbage dump of commercial messages that bark at the listener like rabid dogs. (SFX: 2 Doberman dogs barking) It's tin pan alley tonality derives from its peculiar power to promote retail events. (Carnival sounds) It's immediate, in the car and the kitchen, 'do it now' messaging make it ideal for retailers.

It is also cheap to produce which accounts for the cheapness of the product. Most of it is made by the stations themselves. (SFX: Slops being poured into a bucket) So the industry is responsible for the aural stench coming out of your radio. (Voice: "Phew!")

Radio has great potential as a creative medium. In the 1930s, Orson Welles caused mass panic across America when he put to air a dramatisation of HG Well's "War of the Worlds" which convinced the nation that Martians were invading. (SFX: Dramatic music, sounds of screaming crowds fleeing) He was able to be so realistic because of a mechanism called "Theatre of the Mind". This is a peculiarity of the imagination that enables it to paint vivid pictures based on sounds alone. The Goons Show is an example. With cheap sound effects, one can take the listener - via their imagination - into fantasmagorical worlds, painting any scene or action you want, each one tailored by the individual's imagination to that individual. (SFX: Sound of massive car accident in surround sound. Followed by sounds of harps and choirs. Male V/O: "Welcome to Heaven")

Television leaves nothing to the imagination. It's harder to write for radio than it is for TV.

The British are best in the world at this stuff. Contact Commercial Radio Australia and ask to hear the latest British radio awards reel.

(SFX: Carnival sounds, brass band. Male V/O: "That's right folks, don't touch that dial....") One advantage of entering the radio arena with a half decent commercial - yours will stick out like dogs amid the putrid dross going to air at present. (SFX: Sound of couple making love.) OK, That's enough of that... (SFX: Blind being drawn down)

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Cheers!

Michael Kiely