Asia Radio Today owner and international media trainer Steve Ahern was in Malaysia for World Radio Day (WRD) 2015 last Friday and spoke to business station B FM about the business of radio .

BFM is Malaysia’s only independent radio station focused on business news and current affairs.

Steve, who has been in the radio industry for over 35 years, said: “Over 50 percent of the world’s population is under 30 and a majority of those people live in developing nations, radio is still a very important tool.”

On being asked whether young people would be interested in radio when they have so much technology at their disposal, he said: “People are still interested in radio, It’s just that they are looking at a different ways of listening. The internet means we can listen to radio stations and podcasts from across the globe. And that has profound implications not only for the listeners but for the stations as well.”

While discussing whether internet is going to kill radio, he said radio will stay as it is still very valuable for major media companies that have large audiences because the bigger you get on the internet, the more you pay, but on free-to-air broadcasting there’s always a fixed cost of distribution.

Speaking about what makes great radio, he said: “It is engaging personalities with great content. In music radio that could be high profile interesting entertainers to communicate messages through songs. In talk radio, it’s about the content that the listeners want.”

When asked how does one know what will work on radio, he replied:  “In my time, just chasing ratings and doing promotions didn’t work. Ratings can go up and down but if you try and chase them mindlessly, you lose credibility. So keep credible. Short term gains are not worth the longer term lack of trust that may come with credibility.”

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