Week 5: Sound & Radio

"Radio is the theatre of the mind."

Steve Austin

This week's lecture was a bit different as it was given to us in an mp3 sound bite (shown above). The lecture comprised of two interviews: one with Richard Fidler, and the other with Steve Austin, both ABC broadcasters. I was already a huge fan of Richard Fidler and Steve Austin had a lot of great info about radio broadcasting too.

For one, radio is massively different to TV... and not just in the obvious way. Radio is more intimate than TV in that people are often multitasking when they're listening, so the radio is more like a little voice in your head than a distant entertaining box. This means the listeners want to feel included in the conversation and being a good broadcaster means that you facilitate this.

Richard Fidler

Steve also spoke about the importance of enunciation and a broad vocabulary. A broadcaster is trying to communicate to the masses so it's important to be able to 'break down the walls' and be understood by the listeners.

Both Richard and Steve talked in depth about giving an interviewee space to talk and being a good listener. I've been interested in radio broadcasting for a long time and I always thought that above everything, silences are to be avoided. But Richard squashed that by saying that silence is powerful. Not the awkward gaps when nothing's going on but during an interview and the person in collecting themselves or something like that, they can really add human experience and emotion to the interview.

I also learnt that the best way to get answers from the person being interviewed is to give them respect. Respect them by being empathetic in the tone of your voice when it's appropriate, give them space to answer and listen more than talk. People don't respond well to probing so it's important not interrogate them or they'll just get defensive.

Another thing to remember when doing radio interviews is watching out for body language. You can learn a lot about how someone acts and take cues for questions from that.

I really enjoyed this lecture and am planning to look deeper into the realm of radio very soon.