Broadcast: the last 50. What's next?

The word I've heard at meetings more often than any other over the past couple of years is change.

Every industry is experiencing rapidly escalating change, and radio is no exception. In a relatively short time, radio has gone from crystal sets to transistors, from AM to FM to HD, from "Ma & Pa" family ownership to conglomerate multiple ownership of stations.

But during this time of change, some of the basic important qualities have stayed in place and continue to give radio a unique role in the world of mass communications.

Radio is still the most mobile, readily available in tractors, trucks and combines, as well as the milking parlor, the shop and the house. That makes it the most timely, providing information instantly to help producers make marketing and cropping decisions.

There's one more important quality and that's personality; farm broadcasters have established credibility and trust and are welcomed as a friend by their listeners. They are more than a voice on the radio as they travel their listening area and personally meet listeners at farm meetings and events, frequently appearing as MCs and speakers, as well as serving on Boards of local, state and national organizations.

CHANGING CONTENT

Now, back to change ... as farming has changed, the content of farm radio programs has changed. I became a member of the NAFB in 1956, a year before the birth of NAMA and four years before I moved to my present post at WGN Radio in Chicago. When asked to name the biggest change I have seen in agriculture in those years, I have a one word answer: globalization.

In 1960, my programs were aimed at listeners in our six-state Midwest listening area. We covered terminal livestock markets with direct daily reports from Union Stockyards in Chicago and grain futures prices at the Chicago Board of Trade, and weather forecasts covered just the Midwest.

Today we spend at least half of our time talking about global issues. Weather in South America during our winter season is often more important to our farm listeners than U.S. weather. And when you look at events that have had a tremendous impact on our farm economy in the past decade, most of them have occurred outside our borders: the discovery of Mad Cow Disease in Canada, the outbreak of SARS in Asia, the financial meltdown in Southeast Asia, Asian Bird Flu, Foot and Mouth Disease in the U.K. and the refusal of many countries to accept biotechnology products.

If space allowed, I could spend many words discussing the biggest change domestically in this decade. Finally, the realization and acceptance of the idea that we can produce energy every year on America's farms and cut our dependence on foreign oil. That has brought a welcome positive change to the rural economy.

CHANGING TECHNOLOGY

I could also share the tremendous change in technology in the broadcast industry that now allows us to do reports via cell phone or the Internet from a cotton field in Texas or a corn field in Iowa.

Technology change has fostered structural change in the industry; one of the biggest being the advent of the farm radio networks. Television was added to the mix at about the same time NAMA was formed with stations like WBAY-TV in Green Bay and WIBW-TV in Topeka leading the farm television charge in the 50's. Today, with the Internet, podcasting and new access tehnology coming at us daily, who knows what the future holds.

It is also worth noting that farm broadcasters no longer just talk to farmers and ranchers, they now talk for them as well, often becoming advocates for agriculture on issues dealing with animal rights, the environment, food safety and food prices. Because of the credibility they have established with their non-rural listeners, they tend to be trusted as voices of reason and knowledge in these areas.

THE NEED

My love for radio and its important role in communications stems from a day in 1945 on our Wisconsin dairy farm.

The Rural Electrification Act didn't get to our farm until after the war, so we were without electricity. We had no telephone and no daily newspaper, so our radio was our one source of communication with the outside world. Radio batteries were rationed and ours died in January 1945, putting an end to our radio listening.

It was a foggy day in April when I heard a pounding noise coming from our neighbor's farm across a narrow valley. When he saw that he had my attention, he cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted across the valley, "Tell your folks the president died today." The date was April 12, 1945, and that's how I learned that Franklin Roosevelt had passed away--from a voice shouted across a valley.

I vowed to never be without a radio again. Six years later I was on the radio talking to thousands of people, without shouting, on WKLJ in Sparta, WI. It has been a glorious ride without equal ever since!

ORION SAMULESON is Agricultural Services Director for WGN, Chicago, IL, and host of the This Week in AgriBusiness TV show. Among his many honors was his 2004 induction into the Nat'l Radio Hall of Fame, the highest award in the radio broadcasting industry.