The move away from traditional radio sets to mobile phones is not only a professional problem for broadcasters like the BBC, but is also a concept issue for Amateur / Ham Radio training groups.

Controller of BBC Radio 1, Ben Cooper has recently said “The era of studios, transmitters and radio sets is about to go [into the past] for young audiences. No young person now tunes across a [radio] dial and bumps into Radio 1"

Ofcom had previously reported that radio listening is declining among the young as they switch to listening online. This profound change will inevitably have an impact on amateur radio.

Amateur training courses currently assume that newcomers understand the basic idea of tuning a radio dial to receive different stations. It is clear that for the younger generation, this is now an alien concept, they will never have done such a thing in their entire life.

The Drum version of The Times -
http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/05/05/radio-1-boss-admits-being-blindsided-smartphone-revolution
Ofcom: Radio listening declining among young - http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2015/march/radio_listening_declining_among_young.htm