Radio Day celebrates the past, looks forward

Michael Hedges May 11, 2009

In most every country a Radio Day is organized. Most are a mix of professional discussions, networking and social events. Very few are nationally recognized, complete with parades.

Russia has celebrated Radio Day on May 7th as a national professional holiday for a very long time. The day itself, May 7th, is set aside specially to commemorate Alexander Popov’s 1895 presentation to a scientific society describing a radio receiver. Ever the academic, Popov didn’t apply for a patent. The rest is history.

So, this years’ Radio Day is Russia also commemorates the 150th anniversary of Popov’s birth, making it more special for radio historians. In 1925 the USSR established an official Radio Day. This year, Popov’s name was attached to TV towers and a GSM satellite.

Mostly, Russian radio professionals celebrated Radio Day with social gatherings, fun stuff. A group in St. Petersburg held a bowling tournament. About a thousand students from Ural State Technical University in Ekaterinburg paraded through the city’s main street up to the Popov memorial. All was freshly painted, alas not for Radio Day or Alexander Popov but for the Saturday Victory Day parades.

No Radio Day is complete without an awards ceremony. At the AS Popov museum in St. Petersburg awards in more than a dozen categories, Popov laureates, were given to DJs, show hosts and producers.  

Russia’s Radio Day certainly celebrated the historical. But, too, Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Network (RTRS) Executive Director Andrei Stepanov noted more recent changes. “Over the past three years,” he said, “we replaced the entire fleet of analogue television and radio transmitters. A significant number of new stations and channels have come on in the last three years.” RTRS is the State owned transmitter and tower company established in 2001 by then Russian Federation President Vladmir Putin to overhaul broadcasting infrastructure.

“Radio will live,” said Europa Plus General Director Alexander Polesitsky, interviewed ahead of Radio Day by RIA Novosti (May 6). “I’m not sure the future of radio is only digital broadcasting. The experience of other countries shows that in the transition to higher quality digital broadcasting analogue radio doesn’t die.” Europa Plus, owned by French media company Lagardere, was the first private commercial radio channel in Russia, launched in 1991.

“If we talk about radio as a component of show business,” mused Echo of Moscow General Director Yuri Fedutinov, ”I am not worried because all the stations that create have contributed to expanding the radio audience.”

But, always Russian, Polesitsky tipped to the historical. Radio’s future, he said, “will be returning to the past. In Soviet times there was the audio network covering the entire country. Much of that (wired) network was lost for various reasons. The wires disappeared but not the network.”

And for Alexander Popov’s contribution, said Fedutinov, every innovation yields more innovation. “Had Popov not invented the radio, there was a Marconi. If not a Marconi, a thousand others were there. And each one improved the product.” 

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