The Chaos Behind RTR's Radiothon

Radiothon is a good thing. For this scribe at least, it marks the beginning of the summer music period: after Radiothon there are the WAMi awards and then the continuous stream of festivals which, by their end, lead you to look back and go, “Man, that was fun, I wish I could remember most of it. Why am I still covered in mud?”

But more than that, Radiothon is a time where we, the music-loving public, can pay it back to the guys that keep us fuelled on great local and alternative music, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “There's a big difference. It's extraordinary,” RTR breakfast presenter Peter Barr says, in that oh-so-familiar voice on this side of the continent, when asked what it's been like to see the yearly event grow so much. “The station, as a whole, has grown exponentially. Sure, it's a slicker and more professional unit now, hopefully without sacrificing any of its indie cred. It does the same job, just better. And certainly Radiothon, at the heart of that, has just gotten bigger and bigger over time.”

That's no surprise. There really aren't many stations quite like RTR, where you can tune in and have no idea what will be playing. At one point, there'll be in-depth discussion into national politics; at another, a big studio jam-down to dancehall classics. It's a mixed bag in the biggest sense of the word, but what keeps people tuned in is the passion for delivering cutting-edge content, with a keen bent on the local side of things. “Absolutely,” Barr agrees, “and Radiothon is a great opportunity to expose people to those kind of sounds. It's a bit of a double-edged sword, I guess. Radiothon is the one time in the year where we pretty much turn the spotlight inwards and big-up ourselves, so to speak. Rather than what we spend most of our time doing, which is promoting everyone else, and telling people how great local things are. This is our chance to show how great we are; we do it internally, and we want the world to know that these people in this office put their hearts into this.”

For those of you who have heard Radiothon before, you'll know it's a bit of a ride. For a full week, you'll hear the gamut of presenters pretty much partying it up in the Radiothon spirit. “That message can kind of get big and boisterous and loud and all about RTR, but I think it makes great radio. It's a great time to listen in if you like chaos and madness projected at you through your radio,” Barr laughs. “And you know, during Radiothon we promote interesting, avant-garde, mad music, as we do all year round, so that never changes. It might just struggle amongst all the fun we're having, perhaps.”