According to yesterday’s Australian (Monday 15th), because the Federal Government has granted the TV broadcasters somewhere around $250 million in discounts on their licence fees, the radio industry wants it too to “keep them competitive”.

So the radio stations seem to hint then that TV is nicking their clientele – both listeners and advertisers? I beg to differ. Certainly TV has its fair share of Oprah lovers and other daytime nonsense, but these are measured in the tens of thousands I would have thought, not the many hundreds of thousands of prime time viewers.

I think there are two factors; one is that traditionally people have listened to radio in the car more than anywhere else. It used to be in the workplace too until the greed set in and the powers-that-be decided to prosecute hairdressers and their ilk for playing music off the radio for their customers. But now, the iPod rules the Universe of the Motor Car and people can listen to what they want, when they want and how they want. Sure we still have CDs, and these took over from cassettes, but the sheer convenience of the iPod has got them licked forever. Sadly I add.

And then there is the quality of radio. I hardly listen to commercial radio these days, but when I do, it is truly awful – especially breakfast with these crews, zoos, morning show, cage, boy-girl-boy affairs. Someone should tell them, YOU ARE NOT FUNNY.

As a consequence I suspect, horrible as it may be, people are turning more and more to Kochie and Mel (ugh!) or whoever is fronts the Nine version these days. I suspect more than a few are also switching to Foxtel based music such as ‘air’ or even watching Sky News.

What sticks in my craw though, is that the guvment (no matter the flavour) sees no problem with simply granting industries these massive grants (bailouts?) I don’t see Mr Stokes and his brethren eating cheese sandwiches with slightly stale bread just yet.