Talking Radio: Bryan Coombes

Bryan Coombes

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In the age of podcasts, VoD and internet radio, Bryan Coombes of VT Communications asks whether there is a future for traditional shortwave radio.

Who remembers the bold -predictions made in the 1970s and 1980s? Programmes such as Tomorrow's World described a near future when rather than eating meals, we'd be taking specially prepared tablets that gave us all the nutrition we needed. We'd also be zooming along in our hover cars and holidaying on the moon. For a while, we believed it (well, I did anyway).

Then, in the 1980s, when I started my first "proper job", I was told of the paperless office of the future. Wrong again.

So when I heard a few years ago that international broadcasting on shortwave was destined to go the same way as Betamax, Top of the Pops and Concorde, I started to wonder how likely it really was.

Since 1927, when the Dutch began broadcasting to the Caribbean on shortwave, it quickly caught the imagination of people who wanted to reach millions of people, thousands of miles away, for whatever reason (political, ideological, religious or humanitarian).

As governments around the world realised the commercial value of the spectrum, the shortwave bands remained untouchable, unregulated and, apart from operational running costs, relatively cheap in terms of cost per listener.

Over the years, technology has provided more ways of listening to and watching content. But this growth in choice is not uniform the world over.

Articles by commentators in developed countries predict a future of people consuming content through converged platforms on high-tech -multimedia devices - a scenario which does not apply everywhere.

In western Europe and North America, analogue shortwave has declined dramatically. Yet once we broaden our mind to include all the world, the reality is that reports of the death of analogue shortwave are -premature. Of the BBC World Service's weekly audience of 180 million people, more than 100 million listen on -analogue shortwave.

There are billions of cheap shortwave receivers around the world. For some people, -shortwave can be the only lifeline to the outside world - where there is limited broadcast infrastructure, for example, or -communities are unable to afford TVs, computers or mobile phones.

Even in more developed countries, shortwave retains an emergency role as often the sole means of communication after a natural disaster strikes, bringing essential news on aid and further forecasts.

VT Communications has 75 years' experience in shortwave broadcasting and has also invested Ł2.5m in a multi-media centre. We're putting our money where our mouth is to allow broadcasters to engage with their audiences on -multiple platforms.

But one thing I am certain of is that shortwave has a role to play in that mix. And, as technology develops, the ability to quickly exploit the huge -coverage and reach of shortwave in the digital age through the DRM standard means this form of broadcast is here to stay.

Not all predictions come true. I'm assuming many of you have read this in print in Broadcast, rather than online, suggesting the paperless office still isn't with us - and I'm guessing that there aren't many advertisements for trips to the moon in the back pages either.
Bryan Coombes is director of broadcast at VT Communications