In 2020, I thought a lot about the magic of community radio

Published on 1 December 2020

This was the year I accidentally became an amateur broadcaster, and loved every minute of it despite my unending, unremarkable mediocrity.

I know nothing about broadcasting. I know nothing about radio. I certainly don't know what almost all of the buttons and knobs in the studio actually do. The CD player is a ‘professional’ model, so it's got 10 times the number of buttons that ‘normal’ CD players have. You wouldn’t think audio equipment could be intimidating, until you meet that CD player.

Nonetheless, becoming a DJ was shockingly easy. I expressed an interest in “maybe helping out or something like that”, thinking that I might make it to junior tea-maker if I was lucky, but before I knew it I'd been invited down to the studio to be "shown the ropes" by Dave-who-knows-what-he's-doing.

He sat me in the DJ chair (it's just a chair, but sometimes it has DJs in it), put the DJ headphones on my head (they're just headphones, but DJs wear them) and told me to click this, slide that, and press the other. I had a go. Music played. I was broadcasting. It was terrifying.

After about 10 minutes or so, Dave-who-knows-what-he's-doing suddenly got up out of his chair, patted me on the shoulder, and said: "You'll be fine I think. I'm off for a pint. See you later." And he was gone.

I was all alone, just me and those buttons and knobs, and well, some sort of audience waiting to be entertained at the other end of a radio wave. I think I resorted to Elton John.

***

Community radio stations like the one co-created by Dave-who-knows-what-he's-doing and his colleagues (who also know what they're doing) are tiny hidden gems of small town cultural activity.

Let's face it, community radio is a niche product. These days, any sort of radio is pretty niche. It feels like an activity from a distant age. But one of the eye-opening things about getting involved is that it's not necessarily all about serving a tiny audience of listeners; it's also about serving a tiny audience of broadcasters.

Community radio opens up and unlocks people's passions and lets them share them with the world. It lets poets share poetry, writers share words, talkers share whatever's on their minds. Ordinary people get a chance to be ordinary, but on the airwaves. It's a bit magical.

Many of them are people like me who had no idea we were interested in broadcasting, let alone being capable of actually doing it.

There are, of course, different levels of ‘capable’. I've made some of my best ever mistakes while on the mic in the studio.

The time I played Sarah's song request and dedicated it to Sue.

The time I forgot how to play adverts, so did a whole show without playing any adverts at all (bit of a problem for a station funded by advertising).

And the time I meant to play Depeche Mode for Andrew, and confidently announced this fact on air. Then pressed the wrong button and played Bob Marley.

Skill, it turns out, is less important than enthusiasm.

***

When the pandemic hit, I retreated from the studio just as I retreated from my long-distance commute and my day job in an office.

Sharing those buttons and knobs with other DJs didn't feel safe enough for me, so I stayed off air for weeks until I worked out how to record shows from home.

While I was away, something special happened: the station secured a licence to broadcast on FM for a few weeks. These licences are hard to come by, because the FM airwaves are crowded and there's only so much space for little stations like ours to join in. Most of the time, we only broadcast online.

FM is different, though. It feels different when you're in the studio, and you know your show is going out on FM. It feels more live, more direct, more connected somehow. It puts an extra little zing up your spine as you sit there, pressing the wrong buttons.

During those weeks the station took on a different tone, broadcasting regular updates about the Covid-19 situation in our town. It put out national news headlines as they changed, but also local as it changed too: what shops were open for what hours, where people were required to social distance and how, what was going to be done about distancing on the town's narrower medieval footpaths.

All of this felt like it was building a closer connection between people confined to their homes. Community radio doesn't just serve communities, it builds them: in the homes of the listeners, and in the imaginations of the all-too-new-to-this broadcasters.

Dave-who-knows-what-he's-doing is used to it, he's been broadcasting for years.

He's got good advice for idiots like me who make loads of mistakes: "Don't mention them on air," he says with a wink.

Then he leans closer, holds a finger in front of his lips, ssshing me before I can speak: "Most people don't notice mistakes," he whispers. "They're not really paying that much attention."

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