Radio Makes Waves Online

2GB – Sydney’s number one talk radio station – has become the first commercial radio operation in Australia to take its news service online.

The ABC, with its bi-media history, has been online since 1997 but Australia’s commercial stations have been slow to join the digital revolution. The lag in commercial radio’s web-presence is dangerous – the future of news is no doubt digital and multi-platform. And while traditional radio talk content will remain relevant, diversification and online accessibility are essential if future audiences are to be found and profits sustained.

The reluctance of radio networks to make the move online can be understood as a product of a blinkered one-platform approach to the business, the under-estimation of the marketability of news and information and the post 80’s boom-time de-funding of quality commercial news services – essential for content production. But change is finally afoot.

2GB – once the centre-pin of the formerly vast Macquarie radio news network - now operates as a single-city station with a bureau in the Canberra press gallery. Its star is Alan Jones - the top-rating and widely syndicated right-wing shock-jock known by detractors as “The Parrott”.

The station’s new online news service – Live News – blends conventional radio content filed by its journalists in Sydney and Canberra with multi-media reports, produced by specialist online reporters based in both centres, with a minimum of wire service stories. Alan Jones also has a ‘spruik spot’ and reporters’ blogs are in development.

The site is gaining popularity (although management isn’t making the figures public) with a significant increase in visitor traffic during the Federal Election and anecdotal evidence from the Canberra bureau of Press Gallery reporters chasing stories from the site.

University of Canberra journalism graduate, John Barrington, is the multimedia reporter based in the Gallery. He came to the job after short stints in regional commercial radio and with AAP. His job is effectively across three platforms. He files radio stories to the traditional news service as required, takes a TV camera to press conferences to file vision online and produces multi-media features for the site. He acknowledges the pressures of multiple-media reporting and the potential for diminution of quality across the board but he maintains a commitment to quality of content over speed in an effort to value-add rather than simply bombarding the site with content.

The vision he files to Live News is used to enhance the text-based representation of radio news stories but he also films, edits and files TV news-style packages with overlay collected from around the national capital.

One curious aspect of Live News, though, is its obvious attempt to distance itself from the radio station it derives its content from. Instead of banking on the successful brand of 2GB/Macquarie News and attempting to bring its existing audience online while building a new, presumably younger, audience through the website, it’s attempted to create an exclusive, disconnected new identity. There’s not even a mention of the radio station on the website. And they’ve started replacing 2GB station identifications with Live News ones on reporters’ microphones in Sydney, emphasising the importance of the new venture.

This approach is short-sighted and underlines the failure of contemporary commercial radio stations to adequately recognise the value of quality news gathering and the brand recognition that exists in association with successful news services.

At the same time, though, the main focus of news gathering and delivery remains the on-air 2GB presence. Radio stories are quarantined from online upload until they’ve been broadcast, reporters’ number one filing priority is to the radio bulletins and the online commitments of the dedicated multi-media reporters are subjugated to the needs of the radio news service as required on busy news days or during staff shortages.

This ordering of priorities may change as the operation establishes itself and online content begins to prove its value but for now the online version of 2GB News is a little confused about its identity. Nevertheless, it's a pioneering step for an Australian commercial radio station and one which should be watched with interest.

While modes of delivery may alter and value-adding through multimedia output is likely to become the norm, the future of radio journalism is potentially bright. There will always be a place for live, interactive broadcasting (regardless of the delivery platform) and radio journalists’ skills should be the most sought after by producers of online content. Radio news reporters are traditionally the fastest gatherers, interpreters and disseminators of news and these skills are well suited to the insatiable appetite of online news. Independent operators and tech-savvy as a requirement of the mobile, single-operator approach to radio news gathering, radio reporters are also adaptable media workers who have the potential to thrive in the age of digital journalism.

Video didn't kill radio’s star and neither will the digital revolution but recognising the value of quality journalism and building multimedia content around radio news is central to the medium's survival in the online age.