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Opinion · April 21, 2026
Why local radio still matters in 2026
Streaming was supposed to kill the radio star. In small communities, the opposite happened.
When the last music shop on the high street closed, everyone assumed local radio would follow. It didn't. Across the region, small stations are reporting their highest listener numbers in years.
The trust dividend
In an era of algorithmic feeds, a familiar human voice reading the morning headlines turns out to be a feature, not a relic.