Basic Radio Journalism

Foreword

by Lord Ryder of Wensum, Vice Chairman, BBC

Thirty years ago a broadcasting bigwig warned me that radio was a dying medium, a victim of television’s popularity and remorseless expansion. Since then, talented youngsters with broadcasting ambitions have tended to swallow the doom merchant’s prediction. Seduced by the status of television and the cult of celebrity, they have scrambled to join TV’s bottom rungs.

Yet all the evidence points not just to radio’s survival, but its success far beyond the expectations of its fiercest proponents.

Radio has overtaken television as the most used medium in the United Kingdom. Over 90 per cent of the population listen to radio every week – that’s 44 million people. It contributes to culture – both ...