British pop group The Buggles in 1979 lamented that video had killed the radio star. This was not the case in Malta, for pluralism did give this sector a new lease of life. But this has been short-lived, and radio listenership in Malta is on the decline.

The latest survey by the Malta Broadcasting Authority for the first quarter of 2009 revealed how just 53.7 per cent of respondents said they listen regularly to local radio stations. This is in sharp contrast to the 85.4 per cent registered in a similar survey in 1993, when radio pluralism was in its infancy.

Research carried out by i-Tech revealed how in the following years listenership continued to fall, going down to 74.4 per cent in 2001 and 70 per cent in 2005.

It seems the radio stations themselves, providing low-quality content, and their lack of response to rapid technological change has led to this demise.

We're living in the age of the iPod and internet podcasts, and yet, local radio stations seem to have collectively ignored these trends.

"The proliferation of new technology has probably impacted radio listenership although the BA has no official studies or stats to consolidate such a hypothesis," according to Pierre Cassar, chief executive officer at the BA. "One has to keep in mind that the younger generation (i.e. those born after 1990) have been born in a pluralistic society so therefore they do tend to take things for granted."

Almost all major local radio stations and some community stations also broadcast live over internet, and they have been doing so for many years. Yet veteran radio presenters and producers who have spoken to i-Tech contend that this does not qualify as taking full advantage of new technologies.

"I am in favour of internet and I just love new technologies. Did the local stations rise to these challenges? No way!" insists Albert Zammit, who has over 20 years experience on national public radio.

"Radios here failed to mature and failed to give the listener what he/she wants. Radio has the unique property of being able to play with imagination and what we have here are either political stations which are a turn-off in themselves, religious stations which are restricted to what they can present, and commercial stations which failed to jump on the bandwagon of creating a niche of listeners."

Toni Sant is a former local radio and TV presenter who masterminded the first ever internet webcast from the Maltese Islands, when MaltaMedia.com presented the Christmas Eve midnight Mass from the Ta' Pinu Basilica in Gozo in 1998. He feels Maltese radio stations are ignorant of the power of new personalised media.

"We are living in a time when mass media are becoming personalised. The use of MP3 players makes it possible to listen to whatever you want to hear whenever you want to hear it. I believe that the main reason that radio listenership is down is because most Maltese radio is not worth listening to. It's mostly repetitive playlists full of predictable hits or the most unimaginative production standards. Worst still are the endless streams of partisan propaganda from the main political parties and worthless commercial chatter on the airwaves."

However the CEO of the BA has a word of caution when linking quality with popularity.

"It would be safe to assume that good quality programmes do attract an audience. However, one has to exercise caution when making this claim as experience has shown that certain radio stations (including the now defunct Radju Bronja) and Campus FM carry quality programming which does not necessarily attract a wide audience given that it targets niche audiences."

Furthermore, Mr Cassar sees some positive use of the internet by these stations, especially by widening their local audiences to a global one and providing for real-time feedback and interactivity through e-mails which was previously only possible through phone calls.

Dr Sant agrees that SMS on mobile phones is the only new technology that has had any meaningful effect on the bottom line of Maltese radio stations. Internet has had next to no effect on the quality of radio in Malta. Problems actually had emerged before the launch of internet in Malta.

"The so-called pluralism has destroyed what little quality there was in radio broadcasting in the Maltese islands. During the first year or two after the airwaves were liberalised there were some excellent ideas floating around the dial, but these soon succumbed to financial pressures."

The push towards the digitalisation of the Maltese broadcasting services will, at least on paper, bring some changes. While analog TV signals will be switched-off on the night of December 31, 2010, we are still experimenting with digital radio.

DAB+ is the digital radio technology being rolled-out in the Maltese Islands, promising a much better quality of sound, a wider choice of general interest and thematic stations, and new ground-breaking innovations such as pictures on radio.

"The world has moved on, people are more demanding in their tastes and have far more choice at their fingertips with the vast range of media services (such as MP3s, internet, radio, etc.) and are less inclined to accept the current model general radio stations, where essentially it's a take it or leave it situation for the consumer," according to Sergio D'Amico, managing director of Digi B Network which is rolling out the DAB+ network across the Maltese Islands. "The reality is that here are a multitude of different broadcasting styles that are becoming ever more mainstream and one has to cater for these more specialised tastes."

While Mr D'Amico is quite confident that DAB+ will give a boost to radio listening in Malta, the radio veterans are not so sure about it.

"I do not think that DAB will save the Maltese station. I do not think that it is the medium that is the problem, but the content," reiterated Mr Zammit.

Dr Sant puts his finger directly in the wound.

"As someone who produces a weekly Maltese music podcast, I think that Maltese radio stations that refuse to play music by Maltese performers simply because their songs are in Maltese should have their license revoked by the BA. I still can't understand how certain radio stations can get away with not playing music by the likes of Xtruppaw, Brikkuni and No Bling Show. Can't they see that this is simply making them even less relevant to their ever dwindling audiences?"

In the meantime, a new radio station, Vibe FM, will soon launch on 88.7, the frequency formerly occupied by Capital Radio. It promises to be the no.1 source for dance and R&B music.