While radio may be seen as having declining influence in some quarters, it played a crucial role for the right-wing in the states
GB News has turned its attention to radio, in its latest bid to reach a bigger audience after viewing figures for its news channel didn’t quite hit the numbers its bosses had hoped.
They launched the station’s official DAB+radio service this week, claiming that ‘radio is just the start of exciting plans we’ve got in store for 2022’ while taking a swipe at ‘political correctness’.
It’s undoubtedly an attempt by the channel to further its right-wing agenda and one that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Across the pond, radio played a crucial role in helping to turn millions of Americans into Conservatives, a fact that has often gone under the radar of many liberals and progressives and the attempt to do the same in the UK should worry us.
For while radio may be seen as having declining influence in some quarters, it played a crucial role for the right-wing in the states not only in bolstering support for Trump but also in shaping conservative opinion and even setting the agenda.
An opinion piece in the New York Times from Paul Matzko sums up the issue succinctly and highlights how ‘Fox News gets more of the attention for shaping conservative opinion and for its influence on the Trump administration, but we shouldn’t overlook the power of conservative talk radio’.
It goes on to add: “Talk radio still somehow manages to fly below the national media radar. In large part, that is because media consumption patterns are segregated by class. If you visit a carpentry shop or factory floor, or hitch a ride with a long-haul truck driver, odds are that talk radio is a fixture of the aural landscape.”
After a disastrous start for GB News, which included technical problems and Andrew Neil walking out on the station he had helped to set up, saying he did not want to be a part of a ‘British Fox news’, radio has now become its latest avenue through which it wants to try to reach a bigger audience and influence public opinion.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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