Radio storytelling

Paperback sales are dropping like never before. The average age of folks buying them has jumped sharply. The only consolation on the publishing landscape is the leap in E book transactions. Although “Reading” continues to thrive in quick bursts, on electronic devices and web, the practice of traditional indulgence continues to fall like winter snow. I mentioned some of the reasons for this decline in my earlier post. You can read it here. So, what can be done to revive reading habit? One of the solutions could be radio drama. Surprised?

Decades ago, radio dramas were a great fad among the youth and the old. Tuning in to a particular radio station, on a particular frequency and a particular time was looked upon with a fetish kind of pleasure. Actually, reverence would be an appropriate word. Every week, on a fixed day, the program would typically end on an exhilarating note. It kept the listeners on the edge as they looked forward to the next episode. Until then, they discussed, analysed and offered their point of view unabashedly – mostly when the drama was of the suspense genre. It seemed everyone was a script writer back then. The cycle continued till the drama came to an end.

It also resulted in punctured spirits.

But then, the next broadcast began, and with it the new adventure dawned. One of the reasons why radio dramas were so popular was because it left a lot to listeners’ imagination and his/her ability to visualize the scenes. Unlike a film, which is an audio/visual format, where the director and art director conjure the ambiance, acoustic performance over radio typically offered that role to its listeners.

Alas, today radio drama broadcast has almost become extinct. It wouldn’t be erroneous to say that it’s dead. Somewhere in the litter of webcast, podcast and radio cast the real broadcast, the radio drama has been kicked out of the storytelling path.

Before writing this post I actually searched for archived radio dramas and surprisingly found many. I listened to quite a few of them. Radio dramas I feel have a character of their own. Unlike book pod casts ( Of all genres ), which most of the time are of the narrative kind, radio dramas offer supplementary elements such as multiple narrators, background music and special effects ( sound ).

Maybe this is what the literary landscape needs at the moment. Maybe this form of storytelling will arouse reading interest among the people around the world once again.

It’s just a thought!