Video Hasn't Killed The Student Radio Star
Words By Niva Chittock
Over the summer, the plug was pulled on Salient FM. Ever since, the name has become steeped in controversy; only uttered in the hushed tones of a taboo entity.
It’s ridiculous.
The FM room was a homely studio, tucked into the corner of the Salient office, which never ceased to provide a bit of fun. It does not deserve this ‘unspoken tragedy’ malarkey. As a former host, it has left me wondering why Salient FM (SFM) was shut down in a secret operation. But more pressing is the hole left behind.
Student radio is one of the things Aotearoa’s music industry does best. Incredible really, considering that most who work in the field are volunteers. Student radio is fuelled by grassroots music—and lots of it. Whether it be an off-shore goodie, your mate’s band, or someone playing out of their parent’s garage—it has it all. Canterbury’s RDU Station Manager Simon Claridge comments how “student radio makes the invisible, visible… the unseen, SEEN.” This includes all the explicit content your mother wouldn’t approve of and music chosen by your peers, for you. Hallelujah.
SFM was one of these platforms. It was a place where a ragtag bunch of talkative students came together to hash out a weekly programme of shows and playlists.
Fellow host Emma fondly reminisces on her time at SFM: “Honestly, having a radio show was a good time. The best part was having intense debates, yarns, and laughs in this dingy little dark room. A two hour slot [meant you could] have quality conversations that couldn't be about university or our personal lives.”
The shows ranged a lot, from fresh DMCs to sport news and DnB. But no matter what was broadcast, you were guaranteed a laugh. Inside, you’d find the infamous studio notepad, filled with messages, scribbles, and doodles for whoever was next to walk in under the glowering ‘ON AIR’ light. Every so often, we’d meet up to put faces to voices, leading to new ideas being born. Emma sums it up nicely: “it was loved.”
So why did it disappear into silent air?
Enter the cyber elephant in the room. When you discuss the demise of radio it emerges: streaming. I surveyed a bunch of mates and every single one said their main sources of music were Spotify and/or YouTube. For many of us now, music = streaming services. While they might have pretty packaging and be more malleable to our listening habits, these sites are exploitive. Soundcharts blog provides a concise explanation of how streaming sites work. They're centred around a global payout system which feeds the majority of profits to labels and executives. The artists themselves make very little—even those with thousands of streams. There is not one streaming site which pays more than a quarter of a cent per stream. Truth be told, most don’t even hit that.
While student radio doesn’t pay artists, they give something more valuable: a channel to actively communicate with listeners. As Simon tells me, RDU alone has 35,000 daily listeners (on average). Promotion of gigs, websites and social media pages all direct audiences towards revenue platforms that remain in the artists’ hands.
But hold up a second: just to be clear, student radio is NOT commercial radio, nor is it like commercial radio.
Commercial radio arguably spends more time on the artists’ public image than their sound. Their audience bases are traditionally wider and content is profit-driven. There is no specialised programming or particular care for audiences. They don’t tend to cater to the different musical sects amongst listeners either. Instead, they subscribe to marketable rotations prone to overplaying songs. This is perhaps best seen through their tendency to pin their ‘Kiwi music’ tag to a few already well-known acts. Crucially though, commercial radio has annoying adverts, something student radio does not.
Yet streaming and commercial radio cannot be the scapegoats. They are not the only factor that brought
Salient FM to its knees. We are. We have become lazy. Our lives are slowly trickling further towards convenience and music discovery is not exempt from this. It’s nice to be able to pay $10 p/month to get no ads and be spoon-fed music. But there’s no one there to give the background behind the tune. No one to spin yarns or smash out a top-notch set. No one to give truly uncensored feedback to (censorship is rife in commercial stations). We are just as much at fault. After all, we are the ones choosing them over student radio.
Right now, student radio is more important than ever. May means Aotearoa New Zealand music month. It is well documented that kiwis are proud consumers of music made in NZ. You only have to look at a sold-out Homegrown and my old hall’s ‘anthem’ being “Bliss” to see it. According to The Spinoff in 2018, the highest player of music we affectionately call ‘our own’ is student radio. Normally Kiwi music makes up more than 50% of their quotas.
Simon is well aware of the effect this has. “Student radio is also a filter...a filter for only the best local and national artists...you wouldn’t have the Flying Nun era, Marlon Williams or Aldous Harding without it.” Student radio is the thread which stitches the Kiwi music scene together. In fact, they’re the ones who stitch the gig venues, music releases, and even the global emerging scene together.
Despite the widely circulated urban myth amongst my survey participants: you CAN listen to the radio WITHOUT having a radio or being in the car. Funnily enough, that same internet connection used for streaming services can also access student radio. Most now have online website players or apps with the function built-in. Salient FM did. RDU does. RDU even has an app which displays the current song playing, those played in the past few hours and gives you the option to ‘like’ songs which are then saved to your personal list. This is radio freedom like never before.
James Meharry, RDU Station Director stated: “Independence requires support,” in his 2018 The Spinoff article. Many of us found this out when leaving home: independence isn’t easy. Student radio is in the same boat. It’s moved on from the parental figures lingering in the commercial station waves and it needs ears to stay afloat. Radio is free to listen to. So make the most of it. Turn to local artists. Turn to those who work the hardest to make alternative music accessible. Above all, PUT AWAY Spotify Premium, YouTube, and The Edge—tune into student radio. You won’t regret it.
#bringbackSFM