During my various visits to pubs or while traveling to and from London--I've gotten the chance to listen to UK radio stations. Primarily the channel know as BBC Radio 1.
BBCR1--as it's abbreviated--is kind of like a mix of Q100 meets Atlanta's Alternative 105.7 meets NPR.
Across the course of maybe fifteen minutes, you can hear Justin Timberlake's "Not a Big Thing" and the Foo Fighter's "These Days." Jack White's "Lazaretto" and David Guetta. One story will be celebrity gossip about Stella McCartney and the prank a Radio DJ pulled about asking her to send him a pair of the tight short shorts she made for the Great Britain Olympic team. The next topic will be a "News Beat Update" on the bombings in Gaza and the plea for cease fire.
It blows my mind how such a large spectrum of content is played all on the same station. I understand that since the BBC is behind the agenda, of course serious news would be involved. But could you imagine being in Georgia listening to Ke$ha only to then transition to the DJ discussing the Ukrainian plane crash? The two just wouldn't mix in the United States.
Today in class we discussed how the younger generation is opposed to politics and actually becoming informed via news media. Yet here in the UK, they play songs or discuss topics from millenial pop culture while educating them on world crises. Why doesn't this happen back at home? I know there's an obsession with ratings and advertising desirability, but why not do a little of both? I honestly don't have an answer.
Someone in our class made a comment about how informed and mature younger kids seem around Oxford. I completely agree with them. Here you can listening to all the sensational news while also having current event updates. You're expected to know both and you literally have more channels for them.
The more time I spend abroad, the more time I sort of can't blame the international community for seeing Americans as they do. Just because they have so many more opportunities for, for lack of a better word--enlightenment? They have historical structures and prestigious universities all around that have unbelievable requirements that we as students could never imagine having to complete for more than six weeks. On multiple occasions I've heard students gawk at how intelligent residents or professors are here--so I can't help but wonder how different things could be if the simplest of changes were made.
In class we all admitted to realizing that American culture is a little bit more conservative then the one here. People are more open about things like sexuality or the consumption of alcohol. I'm not bashing our country by any means, but just lacking to understand some aspects of my own industry. When will being informed be as popular as entertained? When will we adapt?
I actually haven't noticed the same discrepancy as you have, Lauren, although I definitely have noticed a difference in news coverage on the radio. Hearing the way Radio 1 handled the Gaza news the other day, I also found myself thinking that I wouldn't hear the same thing on an American radio station. But I don't think it's because we don't ever talk about the news; I think it's because we just treat it so differently.
ReplyDeleteThinking about Radio 1 as a Q100/105.7 hybrid is a pretty good comparison, I think, and I listened to a lot of Q100 this summer because I had a pretty long commute from work in the afternoon. The thing is, they do talk about the news. It's not totally common, but they do do it. I actually remember getting a few news headlines on my way home before I had a chance to see them on Twitter. But for one, I didn't notice a lot of international news. That, I think, is an American problem. I don't like to categorize, but a lot of Americans don't really care about international issues, especially not directly related to us, until something (figuratively) blows up.
For another -- and here I think might be where the problem comes in -- American radio stations don't tend to mix very well. They'll play a few songs, have a commercial break, switch to traffic, maybe give a few news stories. If you're lucky, you might get a little debate and a few callers' opinions (although I equally enjoy the lengthy conversations the DJs will lead about weird coworkers or disastrous first dates). But we don't really get our news sprinkled in the way they seem to do it on BBC. There's usually a distinct transition, the way they might transition to a traffic report, giving you ample warning and time to switch to another station. Personally, when I'm on my way home from work I'm not interested in a news segment. But if I were given a brief story every few songs or so, and then transitioned back to entertainment, I think I might be a little more open to it. I think BBC is being sort of sneaky that way, and I like it.
We do have to keep in mind, though, that they are a massive presence in England, with multiple radio stations that each maintains a different audience. They know what they're doing. I can't imagine having a major news outlet running a radio station similar to Q100. Considering BBC's purpose and wide reach, it's maybe more relieving than impressive that they've found a way to tailor the news to their audience.