South Africa, Oct. 19 -- If commercial radio doesn't pay attention to what that mutation means, it risks becoming the format that plays yesterday's version of today's music.

Radio is no longer the discovery platform

Let's start with what TikTok actually does to a song. Before a track lands on radio, it often lands on For You Pages first.

A snippet, usually the hook, the drop, or a lyrical moment that triggers an emotion or a meme circulates millions of times.

By the time a presenter plays the full song on air, the listener has already experienced it in fragments, remixed it mentally, and formed an opinion.

Radio is no longer the discovery platform. It is, at best, the validation platform.

This is not necessarily fatal for radio. But...