well that's just terrible
Radio is a wonderful medium where imagination is still demanded and encouraged, you can't lazily expect it all to be done for you like the telly does. The fact that you listen to audio-books means that you are still at least to some degree in touch with the spoken word, but radio plays do exactly the same and you get extra effects and usually no narration, meaning that it's actually a more rewarding experience. To this day I remain firm in my conviction that the best adaptation of Narnia was the R4 production - I remember the moment I first heard the theme music on the World Service and I was instantly captivated, it had the same impact that the books did when I first read them.
Ibsen (my favourite playwright) works better on the radio for me than on stage - I couldn't ever see "Emperor & Galilean" being produced on stage as well the R3 adaptation. The beauty of radio is that you form the images in your own head and thus retain a degree of independence and owenrship of your own imagination, you see it as you imagine it, not someone else's. And as Julie Walters famously said in Educating Rita, Ibsen said this plays were for voices, so do it on the radio...
And i don't think i will
ever again experience anything like the unforgettable Whose is the Kingdom? on R3 in the late 80s. sadly i lost the tapes of this incredible series and I'd love to hear it again, even though almost every word is etched in my memory. It was about the Constantinian Shift in the early 4th Century when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, and it was, well, a "revelation..."
I don't know if you have anything comparable to national public service broadcasting like the BBC in the US that commissions radio drama. if all you've got is WKRK your local radio station for talk, country music, and easy listenin', then I'm not surprised you don't see a future for radio. This afternoon at 3 however i shall be listening to the second part of John Masefield's "the Midnight Folk" on R4 - the precursor to the magical "Box of Delights."
I actually much prefer radio to TV, the only TV i watch is BSG, Lost, and Al-Jazeera News, whereas i listen to the radio for several hours every day. Only R3 and 4, of course.