Covid-19 and the lockdown have been a mixed blessing for FM radio. Fewer cars on the road meant smaller audiences. However there has been huge audience hunger for news combined with politicians, regulators and business leaders keen to gain exposure and communicate. I continued to broadcast from the 100Komma7 (100.7FM) studio in Kirchberg for the entire period. That was an opportunity to get out of my apartment, which has no sound proofing as my downstairs neighbour frequently reminded me.
My personal history of covid-19 read like this:
January: Made jokes about Wuhan on the radio
February: Assumed Covid would be an Italian problem
March: Took two days to drive to Slovenia, only to turn around 12 hours later and drive back to avoid being locked down
April: daily webchats with people I’ve not seen for years
May: weekly webchats with people I’ve not seen for years
June: totally bored of webchats, so discovered cycling
July: made it to the UK pre-quarantine
August: came back to Luxembourg; and sweated
“The Late Show” with Steven Colbert
In the ratings battle for late night US chat shows, Colbert, broadcasting from home, has beaten the also hilarious, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon and I have borrowed material from all three during lockdown, so thank you gentlemen. The Trump era has reaffirmed the fact that many of us, including me, watch chat shows for news and watch 24-hour cable news for entertainment.
The shows are put up on “The Late Show” YouTube channel the day after broadcast.
Watch Stephen Colbert talk about Kamala Harris here.
LowSteppa DJ stream
Many people tried to stream their DJ sets on Facebook for the first time during lockdown, only to discover that copyright prevents much of this. I religiously tuned in and shared, DJ Katty (UK House and Garage) Dan McKie (Techno). But the winner for me is LowSteppa, whose cheesy anthems are guaranteed floorfillers, some of them made it across to 100,7 too! Find LowSteppa via his Facebook page.
TikTok
Although most of the users are below 25, the combination of viral music, amusing mimicry of popular culture and creating meme like short videos is fun to watch. I’m yet to publish my own as Luxembourg middle aged folk have been less keen to agree to work on a Taylor Swift routine in the middle of Parc de Merl. I usually watch these at the bus stop, in a bar when my drinking companion is late, or last thing before sleeping.