Call it the COVID radio yo-yo effect: when lockdown looms, talkback booms. When the threat is gone, we crave a song.
The latest radio survey, the fourth of the year, covers the period April 18 to June 26. The most recent COVID lockdown in Melbourne began on May 27, right in the middle of that survey, but for at least a week beforehand the city feared it was likely.
And that creeping sense of dread – and the need to know whether our worst fears would come to pass – appears to have fuelled a surge in listening to the news-led AM radio talkback stations, at the expense of the music-led FM offerings.
