As the world celebrated World Radio Day on February 13, I kept thinking about an occupational life outside writing, one in which my oldest ambitions of being a presenter was actualised. My love for radio predates writing on Nigerian pop culture, and my earliest influences came from Shola Thompson and his nighttime show on Rhythm 93.7, Kemistry Olisameka, Dan Foster, Freeze, Gbemi Olateru-Olagbegi, and Rick Dees. It was an era of simplicity, where presenters seemed accessibly stripped, down-to-earth, and the meaning of “OAP” was yet to be twisted into posh celebrity status.
Most of all, though, live broadcasts of shows always had a presenter cheerlessly saying, “Hello, please turn down the volume of your radio set” in their conversations with a caller. Often times, the caller gets abruptly cut off if the noise infiltration in the studio persists, and it becomes a strong point of duty for the anchor to navigate through this challenge, which can affect the overall tone and balance of the show. It’s hard to pinpoint the origin of “Hello, please turn down the volume of your radio set,” this instructional, radio rhetoric deeply ingrained as a reactionary bulwark. And, even more, the “please” is often tinged with an exasperation that borders on presenter helplessness.
Nigerian radio has come a long way from the primitive devices that blissfully granted us access to the airwaves. I owned a Sony Walkman for a long time and, surprisingly now, these reliably solid, pre-aught gadgets can be purchased on eBay. Technological advancement in radio has led to the creation of mobile apps for streaming shows or stations retooling their websites with a streaming function to maintain and amplify the magnitude of their listenership over geographical distance. And yet, zeitgeisty, modern radio has preserved the archaic tool for achieving decorum, regardless of whether you are listening via your phone or laptop.
One of the new-generation stations Nigeria Info 99.3 has ingeniously sidestepped this overused language. By playing a pre-recorded clip advising listeners to completely turn down the volume of their sets, it saves presenters from the hassle of dealing with unwanted, disruptive feedback and echos. But I have heard this method fail several times; listeners still call in with a blast of trailing noise, the high volume interfering with reception waves. I’m always amused at people who deliberately go against this simple, basic rule in radio etiquette in order to hear their voices over the radio. But think about it: if these people were well-behaved, we may never have had one the most enduring lines in the history of Nigerian radio.
When Bernard Dayo isn’t writing about pop culture, he’s watching horror movies and reading comics and trying to pretend his addiction to Netflix isn’t a serious condition.
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