We guess that if, like surveys, there were eight elections a year you’d want to emigrate to another country – where you could probably claim refugee status on compassionate grounds. Yet, while most pundits predicted that this would be a seriously boring election prior to it being called, it has turned out to be somewhat engaging with more twists and turns than the Nürburgring.

Radio has also been much maligned in recent years for being predictable and boring. The same stations would stay relatively the same. They’d go up a little in one book and go down a little the next. In fact, Nielsen Survey 2, 2008 was characterised in our headline as “peaceful” for the lack of activity. Yet this Survey 5 breaks away from the recent past with some titanic struggles taking place.

Firstly there’s the talk titans, Fairfax and Macquarie. Two surveys ago, just when it seemed that 2GB had dealt 2UE a death blow that should have had it searching for another format, the latter has picked itself up off the canvas by almost doubling its breakfast audience.

Meanwhile in Melbourne one would have thought that new talk station MTR 1377 would have made a bigger impact against the established ABC and 3AW brands than it has. Sure its early days, but a 1.3 share is the worst launch figure in living memory for any station, including Vega and SEN. Why is this so? Would you have predicted it?

Then there’s Austereo trying everything they know (and that’s plenty) to resurrect their once dominant Triple M brand. Yet, despite spending a fortune on talent and a rock legend in Guns ‘n Roses lead guitarist, Slash, for their marketing campaign they have yet to find any consistency in the key Sydney and Melbourne markets.

At the same time they can’t shake off Classic Rock which refuses to die despite rumours that the jock on duty has to feed the electricity meter with coins every 10 minutes to stay on air.

Then there’s the wunderkinden, Hamish and Andy who daily prove that you don’t have to be vile as Kyle to attract an audience – a really, really big audience at that.

Some networks have more of a go than others. If you work at one of the “others,” you’ll no doubt know what we mean.

However, from ABC local radio and triple j to some notable community outlets like fbi and many of the new digital stations from Koffee to Radar and even The Gorilla, Radio hasn’t been as exciting for many years – perhaps not since the sixties – as it is right now.

What do you think? By this time next year, who will be the winners and who will be the losers?

Will bold new initiatives or ‘slow and steady’ win the race?