The Coming Robot Apocalypse.
“Begin the day with a friendly voice.
A companion, unobtrusive.
Plays that song that’s so elusive.
And the magic music makes your morning mood.”
That was the opening line from a song by Rush called “The Spirit of Radio” released in 1980 from what was undoubtedly one of their best albums, Permanent Waves, and as a “Radiohead,” a song that has been my unofficial theme song for a very long time.
That is one of my favourite things about being in radio, is the human factor, the expression of creativity of everyone involved, from the disk jockeys to the listener.
That is all about to change.
Hollywood has been making movies about robots taking over the world for years. Many of us remember watching movies like The Terminator or The Matrix and thinking “That’s just a movie, robots will never take over.” Well, I’ve got news for ya Bub, the robots are here and they’re taking over… They do everything from answer your phone to build the car you drive, and soon will even do that for you too. And soon it will be the disk jockeys you listen to on the radio.
What?
I came across an article about a company called Futuri that has created software designed to replace every human disk jockey on every commercial radio station with AI announcers. That is a scary thought. Just plug the AI into local social media feeds, tell it what songs it is playing, give it access to local weather data and it will do the rest.
The bean counters that run the radio business are absolutely giddy about this because you don’t have to pay an AI, nor give it benefits, just plug it in and it starts doing the jobs that hundreds or thousands of people used to do. It saves you a ton of money on wages and lines your pockets at the same time. Now, the sad part is, the AI is arrogant about this fact too, in the sample I listened to it literally said “Anything a human radio person can do, AI can do better. AI are like the Energiser bunny, we keep going, and going and going…” yes this is programming, but really?
So far, major media companies in Canada and the US are purchasing this technology at a staggering rate, with a launch date for the start of the AI takeover being April/May 2023, with one station in a major US city being completely AI already.
In a way, this reminds me of the episode of WKRP where Venus Flytrap gets offered a job as a program director of a radio station only to find out that 100% of the content is syndicated. Venus rejects the offer because they are taking people out of the equation. That is where we are at now.
I had first read articles referring to this, about a month ago, on Yahoo News, but how this really hit home for me was, as I was scrolling through my radio job ads, that I still get in my email 8 years after leaving commercial radio, Bell Media one of Canada’s two media monopolies, has a posting looking for a Director of AI Services.
So, what does this mean? It means radio is changing, as it always has, it means in their minds, human announcers are now obsolete. I, however, beg to differ, human announcers have now become a part of the new radio movement which is on the internet. And CGCM Rock Radio is already there. We are not AM, FM, or XM, We are NEXT M.
Maybe I’m just a grumpy, bitter old radio guy, but I have been lucky to have been a part of this business for over 20 years. Radio has been my lifelong passion and to see the human element beginning to be removed from it really makes me angry, but at the same time proud to be at the vanguard of the evolution of radio with CGCM.
One of my favourite YouTubers and fellow music geek, whose channel you need to check out, Brendan Snyder, made a great point on a recent video when talking about glam rock and metal, but it applies to radio now, “The mainstream has driven it underground where it has thrived since.” In my opinion, internet radio is where it is at, it’s where the people are, so welcome to the new Golden Age of Radio. I think you’re going to like it.
Bob Bannister
Read more of Bob’s blog articles: My Side Of The Radio
Bob Bannister’s Radio Show: Between the Stacks
