Come in Radio, your time is up!

The clock is ticking for the UK commercial radio industry.

Ad revenue is falling, the big players are struggling to make money, listening is down, digital’s not taken off, and big names have scaled back their plans for future radio services.

That’s the bleak picture being painted by many, and at the recent Changing Media Summit, the prediction was made that commercial radio could be a thing of the past 15 years from now.

This month, we’ve seen another bunch of Global Radio’s stations lose their local name and be assimilated by the Heart Collective (Resistance is futile), and the industry’s in a state of terminal decline, according to Media Guardian’s Matt Wells.

So, is the doom and gloom correct? Well, it could be.

After all, now that we’re all hooked up to our iPods and mobile media players, we can listen to our music, when we want to, in the order we want to… without chatty jocks and double glazing ads. Of course, radio’s not all about the music – we also want to be entertained – but we’ve got podcasts for that – portable downloadable on-demand radio shows (like our own FrequencyCast). That just leaves news – something we can get from the Mobile Internet.

So, could radio survive? In our opinion, local community radio could survive – as there’s always a need for local news and somewhere to turn when the Great British snow falls. The Beeb’s national radio future is certain, as we’d be lost without our Radio 2 and Radio 4.

Can radio be saved? DAB Digital Radio’s failed to capture the public imagination, and plans for “Radio Plus” (catch-up, live pause, on demand, series link for radio) all seems a little late in the day. What could save radio? Perhaps a good reason to listen… back to the days of personality radio, perhaps?

Love to hear your thoughts…