In 1979, the Buggles version of Video Killed the Radio Star’ topped 16 international record sales charts and sold around five million copies worldwide.
The song was later used to launch MTV in 1981 and despite the lyrical sentiment, MTV ceased all of its broadcast activity on 31 December 2025. Radio, however, continues to thrive and artificial intelligence (AI) has as much a chance of killing it as video or television, says Algoa FM managing director, Alfie Jay.
AI is as much a threat to radio as the Walkman, the five CD carousel, WinAmp and, more recently, the smartphone, which offers people access to recorded or downloaded music, streaming services and podcasts.
AI is just another tool in radio’s box. I have been intimately been involved in the evolution of radio from its analogue era to the continued convergence of digital technology on the medium over close-on four decades.
Builds relationships
Radio has literally outlived all major technological advances since the medium’s first-ever broadcast on Christmas Eve, 1906.
We (radio), are in the process of outliving traditional newspapers and magazine print and have continued to thrive through the television era.
As radio broadcasters, we seem to have a knack for finding interesting ways to use and incorporate new technology into what we do to the advantage of the medium itself, our listeners, and our advertisers.
People who write about the demise of radio due to new technology are confusing tech with relationships.
We use the strengths and benefits of new technology to build on the unique relationship radio has with its audience.
Radio builds relationships. Technology facilitates that, be it on air, online, or on the ground, as is the case with Algoa FM.
Adapting technology
An example is the mobile phone, which in many cases can serve as a transistor radio by tuning in to the owner’s favourite radio station, wherever they are in the world.
But we also adopted as well as adapted the technology that drives mobile phones to facilitate our remote outside broadcasts.
Not only does Algoa FM have regular listeners on every continent, thanks to streaming @alogafm/listen-live via the Internet, but we also use the streaming capabilities built-in to mobile phone technology, to share experiences with our audience, as was the case when we recently broadcast LIVE from the KKNK.
Throughout South Africa, we also stream our signal via Channel 837 on DStv, and Channel 637 on Openview, both of which broadcast using Satellite technology.
Tech-agnostic aproach
We’ve been using AI to our advantage for roughly ten years already as we’ve been accessible by asking Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, and Amazon’s Alexa to ‘Play Algoa FM’ … further demonstrating our ‘tech-agnostic’ approach.
Our presenters connect with all our listeners via social media, another technological development over International networks dating back about 20 years.
Whether it’s a quick search via Claude or Gemini, a rephrase of a paragraph on Chat GPT, a fun social media image or video derived through Envato or Artlist’s AI video/image generator – or an ElevenLabs voice-cloning funny bit – we use AI to our advantage and build on our relationships all the time.
Alfie Jay is managing director of Algoa FM, a position he’s held since 2019. Jay joined Algoa FM at the beginning of 1990, four years after it started broadcasting as a regional SABC radio station. It was privatised in October 1996, and is now the leading regional commercial radio station with a footprint stretching from the Garden Route to the Wild Coast and inland through the Karoo.
