Opinion: Don’t kill the radio program, fuse it with journalism to future-proof media education

Algonquin College is shooting the messenger. It should combine its radio and podcasting program with journalism instead of executing it in the face of program cuts.

This fall is the radio and podcasting program’s final year, at least for the foreseeable future. It was announced in February the program will be suspended along with 36 others, amounting to 16 per cent of the total programs offered by the college. Current students in the program can finish but the school will not be taking any new enrolments.

Among the reasons the college gave for suspending the programs were retention and graduation rates. Ben Purdy, a radio and podcasting alumni, said his program started with about 30 students in the fall of 2023 and ended with about 17 of them graduating.

Purdy also said he’s the only student to his knowledge to have found a career in radio, being hired by 580 CFRA, an Ottawa radio station.

Ted Simpson, a professor in the journalism program who took radio broadcasting said that while radio is fun, it’s not the best program for preparing students for the working world. Simpson believes this is true for the television and journalism programs as well.

“The whole thing is grounded in a traditional job that just doesn’t really exist anymore or is existing less,” Simpson said.

There are currently two colleges in Ontario offering radio programs and seven colleges offering journalism programs, with Humber and Durham College’s journalism programs offering experience with radio stations, according to ontariocolleges.ca.

In 2023 radio jobs in Canada dropped by over 800 from the previous year, according to IBISWorld, and national journalism outlets such as the CBC are increasingly expecting its reporters to have multimedia knowledge.

The CBC said in an article released March 11 that it would be adding “Up to 30 permanent reporters to work in 23 under served Canadian communities.” And that these roles “will focus on broadening our coverage and ensuring the stories and voices of communities are reflected in our journalism across digital, radio, social, streaming and TV.”

So, if the media world is changing, how can the college change with it?

“The only way that this is gonna survive and work is if we start smashing the walls down and bring stuff together,” Simpson said.

So instead of keeping television, radio and journalism separate, bring them together into one program.

Now this has already been done to a point. All three programs share five classes in their first term. And the only classes journalism students take that radio and television students don’t, are news writing and strangely enough, media law and ethics.

There’s also a two-month class in level four of journalism that has students work at CKDJ.

But would combining these programs be overwhelming for students. David Smith, a professor who teaches audio storytelling and works in the radio industry, says learning radio is not difficult and that you can learn it on the job.

According to the college’s radio broadcasting Facebook page, the CKDJ news station which runs out of Algonquin College, has a contract set to last until 2030.

Now it could be run primarily by volunteers like at CKCU FM 93.1 and CHUO-FM out of Carleton University and the University of Ottawa, respectively. But why not give this opportunity to students?

After all, the benefit of college as opposed to university is that it provides a more hands on education.

Purdy spoke about how this applied to radio.

“It’s one thing to pre-record stuff in a studio and then edit it (and) play it, but it’s another thing to have to do all of that live. And it was a great way of giving us this live radio experience, learning how to properly conduct yourself on air,” Purdy said.

Also, running a radio station, along with writing for the Algonquin Times (the journalism program’s student news website) would give students another opportunity to build their portfolio.

Could this however, take the focus off television and streaming video for students more interested in that component? Possibly.

For students interested in really digging into television media, the program could provide some electives to focus on this. Or the television and streaming video program could remain a separate entity. In the wildest case, a combined multimedia program should contain a robust video component, along with radio and journalism, to make the curriculum well rounded.

Mickey Banks is a level-two journalism student at Algonquin College.