An End to RT Radio? "Five Months Later, Media Company Appears to Be Folding," by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu

Five months after it began, it's beginning to look like RT Radio might be at an end, joining the ranks of so many other media organizations that have experienced the difficulty of the Talossan media environment. While it's too soon to definitively state that the station has made its last broadcast, it seems certain that RT Radio has gone on an indefinite hiatus, at the least.

The station has made five full broadcasts since its inception in June of this year, in addition to a great deal of smaller pieces and its considerable coverage of the recent election, but the burdens of putting together its excellent work might be too much for its small two-person crew. Co-founders Txosuè Éiric Rôibeardescù and Sevastáin Pinátsch first embarked on their media project with a flurry of activity, producing three successive full broadcasts over the first three weeks of June. The entertainment and news program was greeted with extraordinary enthusiasm and praise by the nation, and the front page of Beric'ht Talossan's June 8th (#6) issue was devoted to the launch.

The burdens of writing, recording, and editing a full show proved to be too much to do every single week, and so RT Radio announced it would settle into a biweekly schedule instead. This sensible move seemed to be a reasonable measure, and promised a greater longevity for an activity that could all-too-easily burn out an eager new team. At the same time, the company also settled into an advertising partnership with this paper. It seemed as though RTRadio would be here to stay.

Unfortunately, the following month of July marked the last regular broadcast of the media company. In the succeeding two months, RT Radio aired only interviews with party leaders and a spirited political debate, and has not returned to any regular programs since. Fans of the show were able to make do with partial offerings from Pinátsch alone in September, but in the months since, even those broadcasts have ceased.

There are obvious reasons for the hiatus. In the first place, it is astonishingly challenging to come up with original and interesting material on such a regular basis particularly when a company is operating on a volunteer basis. It's difficult to make such work a priority; when asked about RT Radio, Rôibeardescù noted that he had just begun his first year of university, giving him more limited free time. Pinátsch, his partner, has himself been burdened with the weight of a Cabinet post ever since the election, eating up much of his "Talossan time" as well. Still, Rôibeardescù said, "it's not the end of RT Radio... more of a siesta."

The hiatus puts RT Radio in the ranks of many other Talossan media organizations that have discovered the challenges of a small audience and regular deadlines. In recent years, the nation has seen many publications put on indefinite "siestas," putting out only a few articles in the months and years since: Mormoglhen, The Talossan Observer, and Stil da Vida are just a few. This is perhaps not surprising, since even the largest newspapers in much bigger countries have seen numerous challenges and have had to transform themselves dramatically to remain competitive.
Hope does exist, though. Several media properties have revived themselves successfully over the years and resumed regular publication, most prominently former King Robert I's Støtanneu. Others have become "special edition" only properties, such as Oraclâ, which releases a new issue at irregular intervals. Hope remains.