An interesting stat in an article this morning about public radio and TV in the USA:

Lately the audience for public TV has been shrinking even faster than the audience for the commercial networks. The average PBS show on prime time now scores about a 1.4 Nielsen rating, or roughly what the wrestling show “Friday Night Smackdown” gets. On the other side of the ledger the audience for public radio has been growing: there are more than 30 million listeners now, compared to just 2 million in 1980. “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” NPR’s morning and evening news programs, are the second and fourth most listened to shows in the country. Go figure. Who would have guessed 40 years ago, when public broadcasting came into being, that the antique medium, the one supposedly on its way out, would prove to be the greater success and the one more technically nimble. You can even download NPR broadcasts onto your iPod.

I don't know the comparable stats for public radio and TV in Canada - and don't really care given the CBC's apparent quality retraction policy - but as far as I can tell, radio is not going away anywhere. Why do we love it so? Despite the advent over twenty years ago of portable music of choice with the invention of the Walkman and despite the promise of the internet (oh, all those promises) and the amateur podcast, we like having sound created professionally and intelligently. We don't really like to choose let alone create. We also like to know what is going on here and now. The internet is a cacophony of global voices, none of which tell you if it's raining outside. Local TV is too expensive and newspapers too slow, though local weekly newspapers are strong and dailies really aren't collapsing.

But maybe there is something less informational. Maybe we like the sound of a familiar voice, the comfort of their music playing decisions. Maybe radio just has an immediacy and intimacy that beats other media hands down.