Feeling crushed by the avalanche of awful news emanating from your radio, TV or phone? You’re not alone. Research has shown that exposure to bad news has a profound effect on our mental health. But there is an alternative. Airzen Radio, set up in France in 2021, is a radio station whose output is 100% positive. Christophe Duhamel is its director of digital operations.
‘There have been a lot of studies about the impact of what we hear on the radio or watch on TV. When you listen to something negative, it’s pretty bad for your health, causing anxiety and depression. So AirZen Radio aims to improve the mental health of people who listen to us. So when you listen to AirZen Radio, you get a breath of fresh air, and it makes you a little bit happier,’ explains Duhamel.
Feedback from listeners suggests the positive impact is significant. ‘Many, many listeners have told us that we have changed their lives by giving them this bubble of fresh air and positivity. And once people start listening, they keep coming back because they like it.’
AirZen secured one of the last slots when DAB came fully onstream in France four years ago. ‘We got people listening to us through Dab, through web radio, through Spotify, even people with Alexa or Google Home. So we’ve got hundreds of thousands of listeners.’
And Duhamel says the radio station airs stories that are unashamedly heartwarming: ‘For example, somebody who ran for three months for a cause or somebody who discovered treasure in their garden. We try to find positivity either in big stories of normal people or in small stories from every day.’
He recognises that it isn’t always possible to avoid negativity. ‘It’s always difficult. But what we try to do is try to see the glass half full, which means if we’re talking about a problem, we also bring the solutions being implemented now or in the future.’
And AirZen doesn’t skirt around current events and crises. ‘We’re trying to find the right balance because we cannot avoid talking about what’s happening in the world. It’s not possible because we would be completely disconnected from the world. And I’m not sure that’s what people want, but people want to have hope,’ Duhamel explains. ‘And they want to have a positive vision. Of course there are wars, there are shortages of food, there are weather problems. But there are potential solutions and there are people implementing those solutions already in some places. So that’s what we’re trying to highlight.’
