Listening To The Radio… Not!
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My drive to work every day is approximately 20-25 minutes so I spend a lot of time listening to music in the car. Today was one of those rare instances where I forgot to bring along a CD and had to resort to listening to the radio. I won’t make that mistake again. I have a few questions for the radio industry:
What happened to music being played in the morning? I don’t want to hear a bunch of DJs and their morning talk shows. If I want talk I can listen to talk radio. Shut up and play some damn music!
There are thousands upon thousands of rock bands out there, so why does rock radio insist on playing the same old songs by the same handful of bands? Please expand your play list.
The big push to buy a HD radio. Why in the world would I shell the money out for that when I don’t want to listen to what you are playing now? Crap is crap whether it is in analog or digital.
So I’ll be sticking to the CD player for the foreseeable future and I’ll ensure my next vehicle will have a stereo equipped for MP3 player support. I suppose I could start a subscription to satellite radio but I haven’t been impressed by the play lists I have seen. Besides I already pay for cable, phone, and Internet, so buying one more subscription to a service just seems excessive. I only have so much money to go around and radio is down the list of things to pay for. The radio stations I do want to listen to only stream over the Internet. I’m sure I’m not alone in my complaints and yet the radio industry wonders why it is losing listeners.
[tags]radio, HD radio, music, internet radio[/tags]
6 Comments
marc klink
July 26th, 2007
at 4:50pm
The popularity of Howard Stearn means that literally every station wants to try to duplicate that effort. Few, however, are as entertaining [and I did not say I listened to Howard on any schedule].
Your fourth paragraph tends to answer the question asked by the third.
I live in the greater LA area. There has not been a station that is not tightly playlisted in this market since the demise of KMET. That was many years ago. Radio is all about money. That is not going to change in the near future.
The general low quality of music has meant that the older stuff is played a lot more than new, as not much new that is of any quality is released today.
I liken this to the expansion of baseball. When there were 16 teams, the overall quality of baseball was MUCH higher.
In music, any moron can rhyme a few sentences [sometimes only phrases, as a complete sentence with subject, verb and object is almost beyond them], steal a rhythm sequence from an older tune, call it new and great, and make lots of money.
When this changes, and music is of higher quality, newer music will supplant the old, and radio will get better in general.
PocketRadio
July 27th, 2007
at 6:17am
HD Radio is a total farce and consumers are not interested - looks like HD Radio may be DOA:
http://hdradiofarce.blogspot.com/
Mike C.
July 27th, 2007
at 6:49am
There sure isn’t much on the radio anymore. I prefer mostly the classic rock format but even that is limited in what they play. There is a lot of classic rock that just doesn’t get airplay. And from what I’ve heard in the latest rock music, it sucks. With the new stuff I can’t tell one band from another.Our local station plays a mix of classic rock to new rock. Another classic hits station also does a lot of sports talk. I couldn’t care less about ball teams. Put it on the AM dial. And one more station is Boomer radio, so I like some stuff. I would never get satellite radio either. Just another monthly bill I don’t need. I don’t spend enough time in the car to justify it. It was an option on my car that I chose not to get. The CD player will play Mp3 and WMA burned onto CD’s too. So I mainly play CD’s now. And I hate Howard Stern anyway.
WereBo
July 29th, 2007
at 7:27pm
Best thing I ever fitted to my car, here in the UK, was a MP3-CD player! Our radio stations are approx 5-15 minutes of loud DJ waffle and adverts, then 3/4’s of a music track (commercial c&@p mostly), with talk over the beginning and end of the track.
Are DJ’s nowadays paid by the word???
Cliffystones
July 29th, 2007
at 8:47pm
Note to Marc Klink. I still have my KMET “Immoral Minority” button!! Rick Lewis (old KMET DJ) is on the air here in Denver in the mornings. Unfortunately, the show is more talk than tunes. When will these folks get it that some of us would like to hear some real musical talent. The last good batch of bands was in the early 90’s with “Grunge” rock. Record labels need to get a clue!!
anonymous
July 31st, 2007
at 1:50am
One word: NPR. Often the state public radio stations will have sister stations which play good music, be it rock or local (indie) or classical or otherwise, and some even have several repeaters around the state to assure coverage.
I agree that 98% of what’s on the FM airwaves anymore is utter garbage. Vote with your wallet, support that 2% shining like a beacon in the darkness.