Why (FM, Not XM) Radio Sucks 616
wemmick writes "The Washington Post has an article "Can XM Put Radio Back Together Again?" which discusses the history of marketing FM radio, how XM could be different, and about Lee Abrams -- "the man who shackled FM radio to the tyranny of mass market research" and is now program director for XM."
Re:It's too late.... (Score:2, Interesting)
ClearChannel killed the radio fan. (Score:5, Interesting)
In my neck of the woods (northern Texas) it's almost impossible to find an FM station that isn't part of clearchannel's network. Lots of ads, nation-wide contests, clearchannel-approved news/propaganda. Et cetra.
Yuck.
The big question: Will people pay for radio? (Score:5, Interesting)
At first glance I thought "no way!". But then again, I thought the same way about pay-TV.
What do others think?
Re:Outside of radio markets (Score:5, Interesting)
Here in St. Louis, there's a great alternative station, KPNT 105.7. They regularly play good music I haven't heard before. On my drive home from work, a program called "The Pit" is on, that reminds me of Headbanger's Ball on MTV. True catharsis is blasting Static-X after dealing with ignorant jerks all day.
Like the state of popular music, radio is just starting to wake up after being knocked out by a blow to the head in the late 90s.
this could go either way - but probably downhill (Score:5, Interesting)
i guess the point i am trying to make is this.. human nature being what it is.. XM will start off with a bang.. but soon deteriorate into yet another generic music station.. sure they won't have any advertising.. and maybe the choice will be marginally better.. but do you REALLY want to pay $150 + $9.99 per month to hear the Butts Treat Boys?.. remember MTV? and how they had to launch M2 so that people would play them for what they WERE supposed to deliver.. namely music?
Re:Outside of radio markets (Score:5, Interesting)
107.5 - r&b
103.5 - "dance"
101.something - jazz
100.3 - "current pop" music, what kids like
98.1 - new skool r&b
97.1 - old skool r&b
96.3 - classical music
95.5 - adult contemprary
92.3 - "current rock"
There are also about 3 or 4 latin stations. 0 competition. It really sucks. Hopefully, XM will be able to kill off FM completely and switch to a cheaper than cheap brand of "good" music stations. Or at least plentiful ones. Our statiosn don't even compete against each other. *puke*
Moses (Score:5, Interesting)
"Heard avril [sic] Lavigne's 'Complicated' just a wee bit too often?"
No. No, in fact I've never heard it. I have also never heard Who Let the Dogs Out.
Ever.
My friends still can't believe that one. Anyway, I digress...
The article continues:
"Who needs radio anymore?"
Good question. Radio is nothing more than mental babysitting. It has no interest in your tastes, whatsoever; you conform to it (or as close as you can get) and not the other way around. Which are you, small, medium or large now get the fsck in, thanks.
I'm not a purist and I'm not a music snob. I like pop-ish stuff. I've got Bjork, Oakenfold, BNL, Alanis, U2 and Sublime on my playlist. But I listen to this stuff because I want to and because I got sick of this so-called "prepped, packaged and served up in easy-to-digest bites, like tiny bits of Spam stuck on toothpicks" back around 1997. My tools, of course, was Napster and internet radio, but those are far from the only choices. They're just the ones I chose when I finally got fed up with it all.
My apologies for the rant but I guess I'm sick of people lamenting the demise of radio as if it is, someplace, written in stone that good music must be carved up and delivered to you on the aforementioned toothpick. Andbody with a tape deck and a little bit of get-off-their-ass can find music that they like, record it, play it back and never have to listen to another advertisement
Re:Easy! (Score:1, Interesting)
In conclusion: Commercial radio sucks.
the answer is (Score:5, Interesting)
unfortunately, U.S. radio is dead, and XM is essentially U.S. Radio. Even if it doesn't suck now, it will soon enough. Program lists are chosen by consumer data, fed into computers and printed on 20lb white. Actually, they probably don't have to bother printing anything - feed the data and the machines will play it - humans just have to drop in the scripted patter from the cloned DJs every station manages to find. Anyways, record companies lean on the broadcasters for support, the broadcasters lean on the record companies for support, and they both end up not moving anywhere worthwhile, and besides they both like to play it safe. The result is playlists that have the same songs played day after day, month after month, from one city to the next. With very few exceptions there is nobody out there willing to take a leadership role, to break new ground, or *gasp* take any chances (chances are bad for business, after all) and not just take what the labels hand-feed them.
If you're interested, you can listen in online at CBC Radio [www.cbc.ca] (Radio One or Radio Two) or BBC [bbc.co.uk] (1,2,3,4, etc., etc.) and find out what radio that isn't tied by umbilical cord to Big Business can be.
Peercast and Ogg Vorbis (again!) (Score:3, Interesting)
CD Player (Score:1, Interesting)
As for the spontaneity factor the article talks about, that really doesn't effect me as much. I've had that same "feeling" burning some new tracks from artists I'd discovered through Audiogalaxy (when it was alive).
Re:It's too late.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Well, either them or Infinity. WXTM, WNCX, etc. are all very popular Infinity stations in Cleveland too. So hey, a couple dozen radio stations basically owned by two companies. In Cleveland we like all kinds of music... country AND western. ;-)
Re:Why not fix FM while we are at it? (Score:2, Interesting)
Q95 used to be the best rock radio station in the country. They have all kinds of awards from back in the glory days because of a great format, funny morning show hosts (Bob and Tom, who were funny back then), a local focus, and a dedication not to screw over their listeners. Well, they started slipping once Bob and Tom got syndicated. "It's ok, though, they still are pretty funny, even if they aren't really local anymore, and there are the 20 hours of the day when they aren't on nationwide."
Clear Channel killed those other 20 hours. No one really listens to them anymore, because it's a waste of time. No longer are they the best radio station in the country, they're as bad as most of the other Clear Channel stations.
Just wanted to share my local tragedy.
Re:ClearChannel killed the radio fan. (Score:5, Interesting)
*Just an observation of my own. I might be a paranoid freak, though.
Re:The big question: Will people pay for radio? (Score:5, Interesting)
Triv
Wait. (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, what's the big disappointment in radio disappearing. I should listen to what IIII want to hear. Content on demand is the future. I don't need all these RADIO WAVES sending UNSOLICITED INFORMATION. If you think about it, the Radio Stations have been spamming our radios for years. And yet despite all this general dissatisfaction with spam, we don't see the disadvantage in that.
But NPR is still important. That station can stay. Sending the NEWS over the radio is still important.
I have XM (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Lee Abrams did NOT invent FM rock radio! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's too late.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Offtopic, but, just went to Cleveland a few months back and I have to say I am quite impressed with what has been done to the downtown area, the flats, rock and roll hall of fame, science museum, etc.. very nice. Cheers
Re:Outside of radio markets (Score:5, Interesting)
For those that actually, fall in to those 6-7 categories of listeners, FM is just fine. They would have no need or desire to pay $10 a month for 100 stations of which 90%-95% fall out of their listening tastes.
XM really will find a niche in listeners who are disenfranchised by FM. I am sorry I cannot take another Creed song, less I go postal and slay all that I work with. My tastes sway a great deal and hardly ever fall in to a marketable segment. For me listening to FM is an utter waste of time. Just more time for the corporate masters to try and feed me marketing and lemming food.
The point of XM is to do something that could never be done on a local level, putting together niche entertainment for a small segment of consumers. The idea is that you reap in all the small segment audiences an in theory they will add up to a profitable number total listeners. This will in no way affect the general public's radio consumption, since they can get their fill on FM. It is a direct analogy to cable television. Cable was in no way a threat to free television. If all you wanted was CBS, NBC or ABC and you could already receive it; there would be no reason to get cable. Though if you wanted say an all science fiction channel, tough luck, because it would be impossible for a local television station, to produce a niche channel for such a small audience. With the advent of cable, you could have your cake and eat it too. You could get your CBS, NBC, and your all science fiction channel. Cable's succes is due to not its ablity to reach people that you could via the free method on a local level, it is about creating a large enough audience pool that you can support creating programming to reach the other people that are removed from the 6-7 most marketable genres. All in all, Cable has augmented television, even more so in the age of digital cable. XM has an equal capacity to augment and improve radio in general.
Local FM radio will always have its place. It most likely will change and adjust, but will never go away. What XM does have to compete with though is DMX and internet radio. Essentially FM is completely unphased by niche genre content provided for the reasons above, but XM is already competing with these other mediums.
The only, yet marketable component of XM when compared with the other two, is that it is portable (only in cars and hefty "boom boxes"). If they really want to have any chance at winning the niche genre market they need to produce a "walkman" sized receiver.
DMX is now provided by most digital cable providers as part of their basic service, so they may have a tough time dislodging them. Their best bet in the home market is to strike deals with cable providers to replace DMX with XM. With a deal such as that they could easily become a true household name and have a chance at getting the subscribership that they need to stay in business. All in all, FM is in no danger from XM, simply because they are pointing at completely different market segments.
What I've noticed in Wisconsin (Score:2, Interesting)
-Two or three "Classic Rock" stations.
-An "Alternative/Grunge Rock" station.
-A "Top 40" station.
-An oldies station.
-A country station.
-An NPR news+classical station.
-An NPR talk+BBC station.
R&B? What's that?
Latin? Isn't that a dead language?
If you like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Lynard Skynard, you have no need for XM in the Badger State. Otherwise...
Re:Outside of radio markets (Score:2, Interesting)
What Abrams is trying to do with XM is make the listeners happy so they won't mind paying for XM. Imagine driving and never wanting to change the station because you're sick to death of an overplayed song.
I wouldn't mind if XM killed the commercialization of FM and brought it back to what it used to be, deejays playing what they think listeners would like to hear. Not bloody likely though.
You go take your ten bucks and while you're at it, make copies of all your CD's or rip them all to
Doesn't really sound like competition to me... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why? In one word: monopoly. Not that they control everything, just enough to reduce the competition that federal laws about airwave allocation were supposed to provide. Their competitors are now desperate, not inventive. Used to be, not only could you not own 8 radio stations in a city, or 1000 across the country, you couldn't own any if the FCC determined your station was not fulfilling its public service obligation. You actually had to get your license renewed.
Now Clear Channel themselves have claimed that owning more radio stations can allow them to diversify the genres more -- but this hasn't produced any interesting results in FM radio. In fact, almost everyone agrees FM radio has gotten worse over the last 5 years or so. So how is XM going to help things? It's great as another option, for those times there isn't anything good on FM. But forgive me if I don't see this duopoly being so hugely advantageous over a monopoly. They'll give you the music you "want" -- and not a note more. A triumph of marketing, a long-term serious loss for the listener.
XM will never be able to make up for another potential casualty of Clear Channel (and fundi religious broadcasters, who are eligible for bottom-of-the-band licenses and silently eat away at the reception of struggling college stations) - regionalism in radio is good. Part of why travelling is fun in this country is local culture, even in this age of mcdonald's everywhere. XM can't give me the beach-blues station I heard in coastal South Carolina, the bluegrass segment on a (commercial!) country station in rural Virginia, or the variety of ethnic folk music and avant-garde rock on hundreds of college stations across the country. It's worth noting that of XM's 100 channels, the Post writer picked one with good, but very familiar music -- and that may be what XM is good for. The beauty of independent, college, and regional radio is discovery of new music. Not that this means XM is bad -- just that it won't save us from Clear Channel.
Re:Why not fix FM while we are at it? (Score:2, Interesting)
I actually became a member of my local public radio station, which plays music by independent and classical artists most of the time, and in the morning and evening rush hours, plays news content from the local area as well as great Nation Public Radio (NPR) broadcasts.
All of us here on Slashdot say we want to get rid of the RIAA's stranglehold on music. Here's one way to help!
Check out http://www.npr.org [npr.org]! ljfrench
Re:Outside of radio markets (Score:3, Interesting)
More to the point, why should I give him the chance to charge me lots of money for the privilege?
Sure, maybe XM will enable people to be broken up into smaller niches. Maybe it'll even have broader playlists. Maybe I can get through 24 hours without hearing the same song twice.
But I, for one, am not going to be paying anybody to find out.
One guy's opinion, that's all. Fortunately, my opinion about how radio should be is going to be far less damaging than this Abrams guy's is.
Re:Article Goes On and On..... (Score:3, Interesting)
Aren't you insightful? The world must revolve around you because you think it does. Please, you don't like XM because you don't pay attention to what you're hearing, well plenty of other people do. I listen to what I like on the radio and turn it off when there's nothing I want to hear.
Re:It's too late.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Fortunately, the one *good* station isn't - 93.3 The Bone.
Re:Outside of radio markets (Score:3, Interesting)
I suppose if you went crazy with whips on the truck/car you could pull something down, but most mortals will hear nothing.
You get out in in Crow/Cheynne country between Hardin MT and Belle Fourche SD and you'll hear nothing on FM, and might if the atmo is right pick up KSL on AM an hour after dark, and might catch a skip from Oklahoma or Mexico for a few miles.
North out of Pierre on Highway 63 in SD and you might get lucky and hear some skips from Dallas or SLC.
Get out in Montana/Wyoming, eastern Oregon, south Utah, north Nevada and you'll be out of luck for much of anything.
One time I was driving I-90 from South Dakota west and in Montana I set the radio on AM to seek. It went for 2 hours without finding a signal to lock on.
Re:ClearChannel killed the radio fan. (Score:2, Interesting)
For now, at least. If it's one thing we've been forced to learn, time and time again, is that the media conglomerates will never leave any stone unturned in trying to get a line into the consumer's head. They will subvert, suborn, and steal any medium that they need to in order to ram through their popularized tripe that is a type of media DNSO, carrying with it advertising designed to make us feel utterly empty and not-whole without their products.
ClearChannel is only one of the investors in XM. There are others, including some of the biggest names in the media industry. There may be niche channels, but make no mistake: every last channel will be used for one purpose in the conglomerates' eyes: to sell you onto products that you don't really need. That is the ONLY service these companies provide.
Maybe I'm a bit cynical about it, but when you get right down to it, these are corporations whose goals are to make money for their stockholders, and nothing else. Mind you, this is neither a particularly dubious nor especially 'evil' goal, it's just what corporations DO. Just don't let anyone tell you that a corporation is trying to do an altruistic service.
XM makes the hurting stop (Score:3, Interesting)
countrycountrycountrycountry-pop/country-countryco untrycountrycountrycountrycountry-pop/countrycount rycountrycountrycountrycountrycountry-pop/country- countrycountry
We have three stations that play a different style of music:
102.9 the Buzz-Basically, pop-rock, emo, and eminem; like the article says, what all the teeny-boppers are listening to
105.9 the Rock: A pretty cool station. They play classic rock, and by that I mean ACDC, Guns n Roses, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, that kinda stuff. The kinda stuff that you and your parents can listen to together without embarrassment.
101.1 the Beat: They say they're a rap station, but mostly R & B or piss poor Djs trying to spin R & B.
All three of these are owned by ClearChannel btw
All in all, not a lot of selection. So most of my time is spent on webradio, like digitally imported, or the local Vandy station, which occasionally plays electronica. I play CDs in the car, but sometimes you really do wanna be surprised by whats played, so I like radio, but, sadly, there is no such thing a electronica radio.
Thats why the first thing I'm doing when I get a new job is getting an XM receiver. I wanna be doing 100 Mph down the interstate and hear techno I've never heard before. I wanna hear ICP and other psychopathic records artists, and I wanna hear badass, shoot ya just to watch you die old country and classic rock. Hell yeah people will pay. I will.
Re:Outside of radio markets (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm guessing that satellite radio receivers would be a big hit in Ryder/UHaul trucks.
Professional truckers are talking about it, and I have seen receivers for sale in truck stops. There's a little technophobia related to the technology, but the price doesn't really seem to be a problem for them. I guess anything beats hearing "$10 trip to Mexico" spam on channel 19 broadcasted via 10 gillion watt CB transmitters just on the other side of the border.
fm can still be relevant. local programming ! (Score:2, Interesting)
more importantly, we provide locally produced news, public affairs, and sports programming, something that is completely lost with XM radio and national/worldwide broadcasts. i think XM is almost as bad as starbucks - it could show up everywhere, putting the few good stations left (WFMU in new york/jersey, for example) in a tight spot.
on the bright side, if XM is "the wave of the future," perhaps more schools and local organizations can take over the FM airwaves and return them to the people.
Re:Payola (Score:2, Interesting)
The crime was not sucking up properly. Maybe that's not what's on the books, but that's the way it is. That's why Dick Clark is the legend he is today, and why Alan Freed got blacklisted. they did the same damn thing, but Clark turned in Freed, to rid himself of some pesky competition. He's like the Pat Boone of programming. You wanna read about the death of Rock 'n Roll radio? Look up Alan Freed.
NPR is "extreme liberal"?!?! Re:Xm/Am/Fm/ClearM (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a big, big world with a huge spectrum of political thought, but it doesn't take much effort to be "left" of whatever the most popular view in the US is. Americans talked about how "liberal" Al Gore was, while the rest of the world shook their heads in disbelief. Heads up people: there are no nationally known politicians in the US who are on the "extreme left".
If you think NPR is "extreme left" then I advise that you never leave your home state or visit your local communist bookstore because, honestly, NPR ain't shit.
I'd consider it (Score:1, Interesting)
a) A PCI digital radio tuner card
or
b) A nice set-top receiver, ideally with a cheap
USB or serial interface for computer control,
and SPDIF to go to the rest of my high-fi setup.
I realize (a) might not be worth the cost of design, but (b) certainly is. My dad gets satellite TV mostly for the music stations. I'd get satellite radio myself, if I could listen to it painlessly out of the comfort of my home, and if I didn't have to shell out $250 for a piece of hardware that my last 1 year until the company goes out of business.
Just participated in a phone survey on FM radio (Score:3, Interesting)
This lady phoning from Texas or something was really interested in my radio listening habits. She kept asking me about these annoying, obnoxious stations (the ones with the r&b music the 16 year old girls seem to love so much).
I kept talking about stations that weren't one of her options on her on-screen list and I think she was getting irritated. But the whole experience made me realize how shitty commercial FM radio is, and how grateful I am for Campus radio stations, Volunteer and Community run stations and especially for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
All of which, luckily, I have access to here.
Two words ... College radio (Score:2, Interesting)
I used to listen commercial radio but I really got sick of it. And I love radio per se. I own couple of scanners couple of shortwave receivers plus the usual FM enabled appliances.
The nice thing about college station that people that play music for you are as excited about it as you are. You might hate their guts sometimes for badmouthing the band you like but that's OK.
Here in Bay Area we are fortunate. There are at least three college stations FM 90.1, 90.5, 103.3 plus some highschool station playing the Big Band stuff. Plus two or three community supported stations. This is what I listen now this and NPR (news).
In one year I discovered more new music I like then in 7 years living in LA and listenning commercial stations.
It all comes down to this. Commercial stations should have money (or they'll stop to exist) be it FM or XM or whatever. That is why they will always stay middle of the road (in any music style you choose). And they will probably make some money and may be XM will be successfull And that is why they are not going to get my money.
Personally I despise people that treat me as "consumer". That is they are going to try to fit me in some kind "dumbass" models based on my race age etc. And I don't want this. I want to deal with people who help me to discover new things.
On the contrary in case of college stations and community supported stations "it's all about sharing" new information new music forgotten old music (but still good). That is why I support them when they have regular fund raising drives.
Yes (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, there actually is a very good local public station in Denver (KUVO) that has all kinds of good jazz. I listen to them pretty often (though I am not always in the mood for what they are playing) and try to support them with a donation every year, so at least there is an island of eclectic music in the sea of drek that is FM.
One thing missed yet: MP3-CD players (Score:2, Interesting)
15h of music with album or disc-wide random play and instant song change. Any old 6 or 10 cd disc changer looks medieval compared to this. Heck, and they even got new MP3-CD Changers!, so you can have 10x 15h of music. On CD-RW if you like, so crappy always-skip songs can be replaced by something better.
I'm aware of the possibility to build tiny notebook HDs into car stereos. But I strongly dislike the notion of having an oh so delicate component in my car that is very sensible to sudden shocks, in fact instantly and totally ruined if something goes wrong - we got potholes the size of texas here on our streets in Germany and it's going worse every winter. Besides, they got a hefty price tag and I don't have any ideas about how to transfer x GB of mp3's to my car other than carrying home the whole unit and hook it on the network. So it has no acceptable price / damageability or usability-ratio (if my friends are driving with me and got their favorite cd, it couldn't be played) - so I recommend MP3-CD players. Ok, they are not quite techy, don't run on linux and don't (yet?) play
Megalomaniac as I am, I can't wait to see MP3-DVD players emerging. They are already building car stereos with cd-rom components, hence the problem with some copy protection schemes with them, so a DVD-version could be feasible. ~50h of mp3-music on one disc, not even counting the possible savings thanks to more advanced audio codecs. Holy shit, just dare to think of 10x MP3-DVD changers... (again, mostly traditional technology put together with already available extras) - Ok, now you can go on complaining about crappy FM radio. With even my simple 15h 1-cd setup I got more variety than most of the "contemporary pop"-stations - with an 10x mp3-DVD-changer I'd beat any radio station variety anytime.
Don't Kill Off FM, Return It to the Masses! (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, AM radios were considerably cheaper than an FM stereo Hi-Fi (not to mention there being no portable FM recievers that were truly compact until 1979-1980, when the first walkman came out).
At around the same time, some NYC stations were managing to broadcast in stereo on the AM band, but by then it was too late, FM was starting to infiltrate the market. More stations began buying into FM broadcasting.
The college stations, depending on the city, were often running the most original and unique music out there (such as WLIR in NY, running old school punk, synthesized and otherwise non mainstream music in a Debbie Gibson world- The only local station to play Dead Kennedys' "MTV Get Off The Air!"). In fact, between the times I listened to WLIR as a teenager, and "discovered" file sharing, over 10 years had passed where I had no idea what kind of new music was out there.
The openness of FM radio has become a thing of the past, however, thanks to payola and media corporations. In fact, it's the only reason I hope XM satellite radio catches on, because once they take their focus off of FM, maybe more college/amateur/independant broadcasters will have a chance once again to bring in music that appeals to the rest of us.
On a sidenote, however, another benefit to making music available that isn't on mainstream radio, is that punk and alternative music of the 80s made people THINK. Has anyone noticed that as more FM stations hav gotten to the point they are at today, that the public is more apathetic and uninspired? Look at previous peace rallies, and you'll note that it's been dwindling down considerably, starting 1988 and reaching an all time low of approximately a million total attending today.
Music used to be one of the great motivators of activism, so what happens when the corporations control your motivation?
Re:XM Sux, Siriusly (Score:2, Interesting)
With satelite radio there are 4 killer apps:
1- Display of artist and title
2- Variety and availability of niche channels
3- You can listen to your favorite station in Montana
4- No commercials!
I love my Sirius radio. I learn a lot from the display and I never have to hear a commercial during my commute.
KEXP SEATTLE! (Score:2, Interesting)
publicly funded radio playing underground and loval music for over 20 years. I have been listening every morning for a while now. Nothing else on earth comes even close. This is the last radio station worth listening to anywhere. Check it out and if you like it, support it. It is our only hope!!
I travel a lot... (Score:5, Interesting)
As a result, I keep my car in top trip-ready shape at all times - tire tread a bit thin? Replace it. Keep the glass clean, keep the cooler chest ready, have a set of toothbrush/hair brush/deodorant/etc. ready to save on packing. Have trips planned out so that if an opportunity presents, I roll.
One of the TOP items on my list is maintaining my car's MP3 player - 30G of (legally owned and ripped from my own CD's/tapes) music, books on tape, stories, comedy routines, etc. There have been times when it's been down, and I've had to travel, or when I've had to travel without it (by train, plane, or rental truck).
I forget just how bad broadcast radio is until I have to travel without my music. Then I am shocked back into reality.
It's not just the fact that the DJ's seem to think the reason we listen to the radio is to hear them - if I wanted to hear self-important idiots blather, I'd listen to children's band (chicken band, or CB). If I wanted to hear a station claim "... KRAP, bringing you another 90% music hour...." (which they do by overlaping the songs enough to have 54 minutes of songs played in 30 minutes of wall-clock time), or if I wanted to hear commercials... well, a 9mm Hydroshock to the roof of the mouth would be a preferable "cure" to that brand of insanity.
I have a saying - "Anytime the consumer and the customer are not one and the same, you are going to get crappy quality." Dogs don't buy dog food, so the actual flavor does not matter - can you convice the owner to buy the food? The consumer of broadcast radio is the listener, but the customer is the advertiser. Advertisers don't care about the quality of the music, only that the station in question has a listenership, which you can get by being a monopoly as readily as by being a quality station.
My advice to anyone is:
1) Get some form of portable, hard drive based MP3 player - a Neo, an iPod, roll-your-own, whatever.
2) Load it up with your music, but even more importantly, with non-music stuff - buy the HHGTH series on CD, and rip that. Get your old Bill Cosby/George Carlin/* albums, and rip them (and for voice comedy, you can rip to a pretty low bitrate). Get books on tape/disk, and put them on. Hell, record the audio off old Star Trek (TOS, not TNG/DS9/Crapager) - ST-TOS was more like a radio show with pictures than TV.
3) Get a weather band receiver for weather reports, a chicken band or amateur receiver for road conditions (for the latter, be licensed if you are planning on transmitting).
4) Mentally present the "digitus impudus" to the radio stations you see advertised along the side of the road.
Re:It's too late.... (Score:5, Interesting)
the article is wrong when it says "tyranny of mass market research" caused radio to suck; two things happened A) as always, the soul has been sucked out of a vibrant social institute (Radio) by Profit-Motivated-Corporations. B) Payola facilitated this soul-sucking.
Why I won't pay (Score:2, Interesting)
In the end, we'll lose our choices!
Think cable all over again. Today we pay for our shows by watching commercials, like we did on free TV, AND we pay the cable company about $40 a month as well!
Don't do it, don't buy XM! It's a waste of money and in the end, free radio will go the way of free TV.
Re:Support Public Radio (Score:2, Interesting)
KBOO (Score:2, Interesting)
KBOO [www.kboo.fm]