Quite by accident this week, I found myself attending two “live radio events”. The first was a recording of “A Rational Fear”; the second was a live performance of “The Unauthorised History Of The Sausage Sizzle”, a documentary which goes to air this weekend as part of “The History Lesson” on RN.

The first, “A Rational Fear” is a podcast by Dan Ilic, which also appears regularly on FBI radio in Sydney, and has from time to time been commissioned for ABC’s RN and ABC Radio local stations. (Disclaimer: I commissioned the series for ABC Radio which went to air recently over summer).

The recording on Tuesday night was an “election special”, featuring Louis Hobba, Michael Hing, Jane Caro and Alice Fraser.

I’ve been a few recordings previously, and they’re always lots of fun: always very political, witty and fast-paced. This time around I was really impressed by Louis Hobba, who has a wonderful way with words, and Jane Caro who showed she could be a “comedian” with the best of them. Also memorable were Alice Fraser, and Michael Hing (who is actually running for the Senate under the banner of “One Asian”).

And then tonight, I saw the live performance by Mike Williams of his documentary about the significance of sausage sizzles in Australia, whether they be at Bunnings, on election day, or as a fundraiser for The Lion’s Club.

The documentary takes a look at why sausages, and in particular beef sausages became popular in Australia (and went out of vogue soon after WW2, because they were seen as a reminder of the war, and of poverty).

There were also some great laughs, with one comedian’s reference to Australia “being the only country in the world where a plate of chips can be an entire meal”.

We were chatting at work today about the revitalisation of radio / audio. Thanks to streaming, podcasts, home speakers, digital TV, digital radio, mobile phones (and lots of other devices), ‘radio” is no longer something you need to buy a “radio” for.

Listening to “radio” has never been higher, and that’s awesome.