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Music Media Hardware

Radio Listening Declining w/ Digital On Its Way Up 192

Posted by Zonk from the mp3s-on-the-radio dept.
Redlands CRC writes "According to C|Net and The NPD Group, the number of listeners to radio media has declined by 4% against the previous year, and the number of people listening to music on their computer has risen 22%. The study has also shown that online radio station listeners have increased to 53.5 million this March, up from 45.3 million a year ago. Music streaming also saw an greater uptake in listeners this year, with an increase of 37% compared to the previous year."
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Radio Listening Declining w/ Digital On Its Way Up More

Radio Listening Declining w/ Digital On Its Way Up

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  • Was bound to happen.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MasJ ( 594702 ) on Saturday May 14, 2005 @06:40AM (#12528275) Homepage
    Well, traditional over the air radio was bound to lose out with the digital revolution. Just take a look at shoutcast or any other popular online radio index and the number of choices is infinitely greater than over the air.

    • Re:Was bound to happen.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 14, 2005 @06:54AM (#12528314)
      The real problem is lack of diversification. There are enough traditional radio stations around here, all playing the same shit all day long.
      • Even if every radio station had a different format, internet radio would still be able to out diversify broadcast radio. It's a bandwidth issue.

        I mean, look at Shoutcast. They have at least two or three stations for every genre and sub-genre of every music format ever invented. Radio simply can't match that kind of bandwidth.
      • And maybe when the cyborg oligarchs like Cirrus and Clearchannel finally fade away, we'll get back the character and spontenaity of local radio. Stuff like DJs who fuck up and then laugh at themselves. Or DJs who take requests that aren't on their song sheets.

        Stations like that have appeal because they are recognizably staffed by human beings instead of computers programmed by marketers.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Not bloody likely. Given the current cultural climate of everything becoming more corporate and homogenous it's signifigantly more likely that Clearchannel, et al will simply legislate their way to an online music monopoly posistion and drive out the last bits of online radio diversity.

          Stations like you propose will never come again simply because that is against the interest of the corporate monopolists
    • I listen on-line because there are are enjoyable choices not because there are many choices. I commute 2 hours a day by car and drive through 2 distinct FM markets. Scanning the FM band brings junk songs, brainless talk shows, and obnoxious in-your-face MP3 jockeys. The best station of the 2 lots KTCV located a high-school where the kids are learning to be radio announcers. No sanitized play-lists there but a lot of enthusiasm.

      Last night one of my favorite on-line broadcasters got in to an hour-long c

      • I listen on-line because there are are enjoyable choices not because there are many choices. I commute 2 hours a day by car and drive through 2 distinct FM markets. Scanning the FM band brings junk songs, brainless talk shows, and obnoxious in-your-face MP3 jockeys.

        As an exile in the Great White North, I've come to depend on the internet for my NPR fix. I like the ability to listen to whatever I want, whenever I want, and to be able to pause or rewind if I didn't catch something. However my university h

  • They should sue (Score:5, Funny)

    by badfish99 ( 826052 ) on Saturday May 14, 2005 @06:40AM (#12528276)
    Perhaps the radio stations should start to sue people who listen to songs without buying them.

    Oh, wait ...

  • Link streaming stations to buying in iTunes... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by weave ( 48069 ) * on Saturday May 14, 2005 @06:45AM (#12528292) Journal
    I don't buy too much new music basically because of limited options I have in playing it. I listen to streaming stations more often (like this article says) but have to sit there and manually type in the songs into itunes to find them to buy them.

    I don't understand why RIAA wants streaming stations to pay them for what amounts to advertising for their members. Do radio stations pay to play music? I'm thinking not.

    What I'd like to see is an itunes enhancement that either apple or other stations streams music and while a song is playing, there's a "buy" button so I can just download it if I like it. That would drive my purchases up through the roof. I get to hear if I like a song (more than 30 seconds worth) and the impulse factor is right there. (I've sent that suggestion in already). The streaming stations could get revenue that way too. A referal fee for following a link from a station to buy should help offset the stupid ASCAP/BMI fees to online stations.

    The few times I listen to traditional radio, it annoys the piss out of me to hear something good and then not have the artist or song announced after it and have no clue how to find out to buy it. Screw em, let them all play conservative talk radio hosts 24 hours a day.

    • Re:Link streaming stations to buying in iTunes... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Saturday May 14, 2005 @07:09AM (#12528351)
      Do radio stations pay to play music? I'm thinking not.

      Yes, they do.

      Also, any time you hear music being played in a restaurant, taxi cab, elevator, clothing store or anywhere else that is "public", someone is (or is supposed to be) paying the RIAA.

      The only time I ever hear FM radio is when I'm in a cab or someone has it on in an office as I'm walking by. Strangely, the last six times in a row that I've heard an FM radio on, the song blaring out of it was some stupid thing about "sugar" which, from what I gather, is basically a half-assed rap song about pussy juice (edited for broadcast, of course).

      If that's what's being played the most these days, ther eisn't any cause for wonder at why the industry is crapping out. So awful.
      • Well, actually they don't pay the RIAA. They pay ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, which technically represent the song writers and performers as opposed to the big record companies. If I remember correctly, non-profit stations do not have to pay ASCAP or SESAC any royalties at all. BMI is paid, but at a dramatically reduced rate (only paid for about one week a year at a place I used to work). Right now, in the US the cost is somewhere around 8 cents per song, which for a commercial station is nothing compared to ev

    • Re:Link streaming stations to buying in iTunes... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by muszek ( 882567 ) on Saturday May 14, 2005 @07:14AM (#12528363) Homepage
      Do radio stations pay to play music? I'm thinking not.
      Actually yes, they do. At least in Poland. We have one big organization (ZAiKS) representing authors and music companies (I'm sorry, I forgot a proper English term... those companies that finance recordings and then market and sell CDs) plus several smaller ones that represent authors that don't like ZAiKS' monopoly. Radio stations pay. TV stations pay. Restaurants, pubs, etc. pay for having a tv, radio, cd player or anything else that's capable of playing music. Separately for each piece (which is kinda stupid - you can't play regular radio and music from CD at the same time, right?). My father owns several jukeboxes that are placed in pubs here. He has to pay them, too. But the funniest part is here: I have few friend who organize a lot of concerts. Very niche bands - not many people, inexpensive tickets and usually very cool music. Every time they do something, ZAiKS agent shows up demanding money. Artists get money for tickets and they have to pay ZAiKS to get some of it back (such monsters eat a lot). As you can see, at least here you have to pay for playing any kind of music, whatever media you use. In such case, I don't see a reason why it should be different for i-stations.

    • Do radio stations pay to play music? ASCAP! (Score:5, Informative)

      by crovira ( 10242 ) on Saturday May 14, 2005 @09:11AM (#12528702) Homepage
      From their web site: "The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is a performing rights organization which licenses and collects royalties for performance"

      Radio stations PAY.
      The Mall PAYS.
      The elevator company PAYS.

      That's why there are "studio session" musicians who play 'covers' of popular songs, give up all rights to their music so that the cheezy music playing every hour in that elevator makes money for the elevator company. The artist who recorded the original version is probably not getting a dime.

      ASCAP had to listen to every dreadful hour of the crap that was aired 24/7 until they got the idea of making the content consumers keep and submit play lists.

      The reason they don't announce they artist to you anymore is that they are doing it to those that count, ASCAP, on paper so they don't need to lose commercial airtime (which pays for the 'filler') to the names of the artists or the songs.

      That's also why they don't announce the 'songs' at the mall or in the elevators.
      • That's not technically true. The cheezy music makes money for Muzak or one of those other companies because they do a buyout of the performance, but they still pay the composer and publisher, same as they would if they used the original artists' recordings. The only thing it buys them is the ability to distribute on CD instead of via broadcasting (without paying additional licensing fees).

        However, the mall (the owner of the elevator, BTW) could easily bring in commercial radio and would pay similar roya

    • What I'd like to see is an itunes enhancement that either apple or other stations streams music and while a song is playing, there's a "buy" button so I can just download it if I like it.

      Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather see a button on the radio that will record the song when pressed. Pressing the button would save the previous two minutes of broadcast and the next four minutes, format the recording into a 224kbps MP3 file and store it in internal memory for later download to the PC for editing. It
    • The Yahoo! music software that was recently talked about here on slashdot has the "buy" link when you are listening to songs through Launchcast.

      ---
      telnet://sinep.gotdns.com [gotdns.com] -- It's a BBS for those who want to get away from all the spam and play a few games!

    • "I don't understand why RIAA wants streaming stations to pay them for what amounts to advertising for their members. Do radio stations pay to play music? I'm thinking not."

      Put aside "greedy RIAA" for a moment and think more in terms of "greedy artists." Most of the royalties collected from webcasting go to the composers and songwriters. A bit goes to the union that supports session musicians and singers.

      Despite the impression you may have gotten from "MTV Cribs," trying to make a living as a compose

      • lashdotters often rhetorically ask why composers and lyricists can't simply do it for the love of the craft and forget monetary goals. This is similar to asking why IT consultants can't do the same thing, and charge $10 an hour instead of, say, $50 an hour.

        I'm not saying that. One almost always buys music only after hearing it somewhere else. I'm not going to buy something from a band I've never heard. So radio play is like advertising the music. It's to the music industry's benefit that stuff gets radi

      • This is similar to asking why IT consultants can't do the same thing, and charge $10 an hour instead of, say, $50 an hour.

        Heh, and people wonder why jobs go overseas... Well, even when people try to advertise themselves as discount workers in the U.S., it's hard to find companies that will go that low. A cult of overvaluation in some cases, IMHO (how many consultants are really worth $50 or more per hour?)

  • This couldn't possibly... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tomstdenis ( 446163 ) <tomstdenis@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Saturday May 14, 2005 @06:50AM (#12528298) Homepage
    ...have anything todo with the fact that most radio stations are canned and pre-programmed from a master list of the "latest hits".

    {fineprint}

    Notice: Latest hit has been defined as the latest album or single that the master controlling agency (see RIAA) demands be played over and over and over and over.

    {/fineprint}

    Three things annoy me about radio stations

    1. Lame on-air "personalities" that are never critical of anything [specially sponsor related].

    2. Same music over and over

    3. Lame advertisements and endorsements that are for things you just don't need that much advertisement for. e.g. I don't care how often you mention it, I'm not buying a $200,000 yacht!

    And seriously an mp3 player with a shuffle mode can replace the "selection" of music played on air.

    Tom

  • Well duh! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by t_allardyce ( 48447 ) on Saturday May 14, 2005 @06:55AM (#12528317) Journal
    Thats because most of the crap stations are out-sourced to a big company with a building full of generic DJs who just play the same record industry generated play lists and pretend to be in some town they've never heard of between songs. The whole thing is just one big advert. A few years ago, a radio station would have a massive library, now days people have an even bigger library stored in the palm of their hand and with full control over what they listen to - how can a radio compete? New music is more likely to be played online rather than a real radio station so you'll get every band, not just the ones that have been heard by a producer. All thats left is talk radio which is great and has a real future (theres never any shortage of things to talk about) ironically, radio stations seem scared to carry people like Howard Stern in the US because of the pussy FCC.
    • Well, they could compete easily by letting DJs do what they're supposed to -- make it their full-time job to find and play music I wouldn't have discovered on my own, in a pleasing arrangement. There are definitely plenty of times where I'd rather listen to a playlist created by a professional than my own library.

      Too late now. I won't be going back to plain old radio even if they do remember why a DJ is better than a top-40 playlist on shuffle. If I was Clear Channel, I'd be looking at getting out of radio

  • Look at the numbers.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tinrobot ( 314936 ) on Saturday May 14, 2005 @06:55AM (#12528318)
    Broadcast Radio - a few dozen stations per city.

    Internet Radio - Tens of thousands of stations, if not more, plus you can listen to your favorite station in any city.

    The huge variety of internet radio menas there literally is something for everyone. With more choices, there's bound to be migration to the more robust medium.

  • Radio programming sucks. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Saturday May 14, 2005 @07:05AM (#12528344)
    Gee, do you think maybe the reason nobody listens to radio anymore is that they fill everything with "CharlieFM" or "BobFM" or "AliceFM" or "JackFM" with pseudo-random crap and call it "variety"? Or that they replace great AM radio stations with hosts like Rick Emerson [rickemerson.com] and Clyde Lewis and replace them with failing "oldies" format programming? [clydelewis.com]

    It's so much cheaper to lose most of your audience and deliver pre-programmed drivel without a host (or just an automated "host") from another part of the country than it is to provide customized, interested, live, provocative, intelligent local content.

    I was never a fan of FM, but I did listen to AM talk radio since I was eight years old. After 20 years, I've stopped listening. The last great talk show I found was Rick Emerson's geek-oriented program and Clyde Lewis's bizarre (but better than Coast to Coast AM) program on the weekends. Now that they removed that from the Portland air-waves and I've moved to Colorado where the only talk radio states are sports, jesus and Air America, I don't even own a radio.

    Radio is eating itself and will hopefully implode soon.
    • And when it does, hopefully the FCC will toss the airwaves out to the public.

      Please. Maybe? (sad puppy face)

    • Re:Radio programming sucks. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Alioth ( 221270 ) <no@spam> on Saturday May 14, 2005 @08:17AM (#12528519) Journal
      Try BBC Radio 4 if you want talk radio (you'll obviously need to get it over the Internet). Of course it will be rather British-centric for news reporting, but there's a lot more on Radio 4 than news.

      • There's also talkSPORT [talksport.net], a UK commercial talk station. They broadcast on the web as well, there's a fair amount of sport but mornings and late evenings (UK time) have some great non-sport presenters. James Whale, Mike Dickin, Ian Collins are all worth a listen, I even enjoy US Rebublican Charlie Wolf (if only because he makes me want to scream at the radio as I disagree with him so strongly and so often).

        BBC Five Live [bbc.co.uk]which has a similar mix but without the ads. Their morning (again UK time) shows are pa

      • Try BBC Radio 4 if you want talk radio (you'll obviously need to get it over the Internet).

        Who can afford in-car Internet access?

    • I think one of the very big problems with music radio stations nowadays is that the increasing corporate ownership of radio stations has pretty much killed off a lot of music formats we used to hear on radio. Remember things like classical music? Or easy listening? Or a lot of ethnic music formats? Is it small wonder why XM and Sirius are getting a lot of subscribers because they want to hear a large variety of music?

      As for talk radio, it works because it's cheap to syndicate and also talk radio doesn't ne

  • Let's see... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by FlyByPC ( 841016 )
    Listen to the specific music I not only like but am in the mood for at the moment, without interruptions, anywhere I want, with good quality, or...

    Listen to a prefab mix of so-called "Top 40," most of which consists of people screaming off-key as if they had been seriously injured, no matter what kind of music I feel like listening to; having to put up with constant advertisements as the price of listening to this crap; only while in range of a radio station, and with dubious quality.

    Hmm. No wonder I h

  • List of internet science radio programs (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 14, 2005 @07:14AM (#12528365)
    CBC's Quirks and Quarks [www.cbc.ca]
    Science Friday [sciencefriday.com]
    Bi-Weekly Astronomy Radio program hosted by David Levy [letstalkstars.com]
    BBC Science Radio [bbc.co.uk]
    Well this one's not a radio show but is one of my favoritesJack Horkheimer Star Hustler [jackstargazer.com]

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday May 14, 2005 @07:18AM (#12528381)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Ah! There is one CRUCIAL difference between internet radio and traditonal broadcast: there is no limited bandwidth for Internet radio. There CAN be 10,000 stations coming into your computer, and none of them are using a public resource -- airwaves in this case, therefore they SHOULDN'T be regulated.

      Old radio had to be regulated because there was only room for 20-30 stations in each market. If a new station popped up, and broadcasted over the old one, then that station is essentially put out of business. M

  • Net audio isn't just about avoiding Clear Channel (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ggruschow ( 78300 ) on Saturday May 14, 2005 @07:26AM (#12528396)
    I listen to a lot of streaming audio on the net, but unlike many posters' assertions, a lot of what I listen to is locally available via broadcast. Listening to it on the net means less static, and often more importantly, it's possible to listen in a high-rise office complex.

    That said, I do listen to some stuff that's not available via broadcast (at least locally) as well, but the point was I normally prefer to listen via the computer either way. In fact, I don't listen to a couple of shows just because they're not available via the net.

    Also interesting to me is that I'm increasingly listening to recordings of radio broadcasts (that weren't originally intended as "podcasts"). That's a big deal for me since I'm frequently interrupted in my listening, but I like to hear a complete program.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I listen for the music (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lgftsa ( 617184 ) on Saturday May 14, 2005 @07:53AM (#12528456)
    I stopped listening to the radio about five years ago, when I started to not hear music on the way to and from work.

    Instead, I got a series of advertisments, including the station self-promotional ones, periodically interrupted by a pair of ADD sufferers who seem to be under the mistaken impression that I might be interested in what happened to one of them last night at the grocery store, or, for that matter, find it amusing.

    The standard CD player in my car meets my needs quite nicely.
    • Yeah, talkative drive-time shows suck. I think this is why many radio companies are under the mistaken impression that people hate DJs. I don't hate DJs that tell me what the music is or where I can go see a show. I hate these "personalities" who ask people to call up and relate nasty stories about lawnmower accidents and all sorts of other crap.

      Unfortunately, a CD doesn't hold enough music for me. Even an MP3 CD would get old quick, I think, especially since I would select the music. I just like havi

  • why is online radio so hard 2 get (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cinnamon colbert ( 732724 ) on Saturday May 14, 2005 @08:03AM (#12528478) Journal
    One reason for a decline in radio may be the monumental stupidty of hte radio industry in not making online radio easy to get (don't both, afficionados of program x, which u think does make it easy) It's like the movie industry opposing videos - total lack of intelligence

  • How about shock jocks and talk radio? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by g0hare ( 565322 ) on Saturday May 14, 2005 @08:10AM (#12528498)
    I, for one, don't need long discussions about anal sex and so forth on my morning drive to work. Neither do I care to listen about how liberals are ruining the country, even though conservatives have been in control for like 12 years now. As for the music - well, thank god for the Morning Buzz, 100.5 - but their signal is weak and I can't get it a lot. Oh yeah, and screw Clear Channel.
  • I know most players have had this feature forever, but the radio list in iTunes is just great. It makes listening to internet radio a pleasure because its so seemless with the rest of the player and there are multiple bitsreams of many of the stations - a 128 stream is just as good if not better than FM!
    • LOL. You need a better radio ;-)

      Actually, these aacPlus streams [tuner2.com] sound really good to me, and they're considerably lower than 128kbps (the top two there are actually 5.1 surround audio).

  • this study ignores a critical player in the game (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rtphokie ( 518490 ) on Saturday May 14, 2005 @08:24AM (#12528544)
    Where does satellite radio fit into the picture? XM & Sirius could also be lumped into "digital listening" but they aren't mentioned in the article. Satellite radio, like online streaming, also offers a much greater variety of content than terrestrial radio with the benefit of greater portability.

    This article also makes the mistake that is almost always made when comparing traditional radio to newer mediums for delivering audio entertainment. This isn't the 1940's, a very low percentage of radio's listeners are in their homes or offices. Nearly all tranditional radio listeners are in their cars. Sure people bring their iPods with them in their cars and that does provide some competition to traditional radios but the 80's technology of casette tapes probably has a bigger impact and more people are listening to CDs in their cars than an mp3 player.

    • I was going to make the same point, well put. Note too that a friend of mine just installed satellite radio in her car. I wonder if that will also have an impact. Satellite has an awesome seelction compared to broadcast, from right wing loonies to air america on talk. From sludge grind to christian, jazz to elevator muzak.

      How long before it starts hurting the big radio chains? People are hungry for choice.
  • Radio is that thing that plays the music that gets mentioned on entertainment news shows, right?

    I think I know some old people who still listen to it.

  • Radio??? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Lucky_Pierre ( 175635 )
    I stopped listening to radio when I got my 8-track tape player installed in my brand new 1969 Chevy Impala.

  • Linkage (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Plenty of online radio links at shoutcast.com [shoutcast.com]. (I always follow the link from winamp.com because it's easier to remember).

  • Jobs (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Spy der Mann ( 805235 ) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `todhsals.nnamredyps'> on Saturday May 14, 2005 @09:15AM (#12528722) Homepage Journal
    Where I work at, our bandwidth is dedicated to the servers, so we can't play stream download songs. So I bought myself a portable radio and tune my favorit e station.

    I think most jobs are like this. Anyway, didn't we think that "video killed the radio stars" about 20 years ago? IMO, Radio's still alive and kicking.
    • > IMO, Radio's still alive and kicking.

      So this is why audience membership is declining? Every time I make the mistake of tuning into a radio station I hear commercials. People these days, in the era of Tivo, want to hear what they want to hear, not what someone tells them they should listen to.

      It's been mentioned ad naseum in these comments, but the reasons why radio is failing are threefold: 1) half the content is commercials anymore, 2) the annoying DJs that really think they are funny and interes

  • why pay? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by xalorous ( 883991 )
    The only advantages I see of digital radio over broadcast are:

    1. No commercials.
    2. Clear signal (I haven't tried it but it should be a nice signal...someone with experience chime in)
    3. No commercials.
    4. More targeted programming.
    5. No commercials.
    6. Wider Selection.
    7. NO FREAKIN COMMERCIALS

    Disadvantages:
    1. You gotta pay
    2. No local news and info
    3. Pay to listen.
    4. Needs special equipment.
    5. You gots ta pay!

    TANSTAFL
    • And right now, there'll be no commercials, until broadcast radio is pretty much dead. Then, like with cable TV, you'll get to pay and endure commercials.

    • 1. No commercials.
      2. Clear signal (I haven't tried it but it should be a nice signal...someone with experience chime in)
      3. No commercials.
      4. More targeted programming.
      5. No commercials.
      6. Wider Selection.
      7. NO FREAKIN COMMERCIALS

      Disadvantages:
      1. You gotta pay
      2. No local news and info
      3. Pay to listen.
      4. Needs special equipment.
      5. You gots ta pay!

      You can get all of these same things with a strong public radio system. Case in point is the latest of our three local public radio stations, The Current [publicradio.org], whic

  • Here in Canada... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by N1KO ( 13435 ) <nico,bonada&gmail,com> on Saturday May 14, 2005 @09:19AM (#12528730)
    Something like 40% of the content played by radios has to be Canadian. So the music played is filtered once through the top 10/40/100 lists and a second time by the Canadian governments regulations.

    Since many car stereos play mp3s now, people can carry more variety in a cd than what is available through the radio. Hopefully in a couple of years high speed connections will be common in cars.
  • on the air except a digital squeal but then I thought "When's the last time I even turned on the radio?"

    I couldn't remember. The Buggle may have had something with "Video Killed the Radio Star" and the constant hammering with ads is doing the same for the Video star.

    Does MTV ever have music videos anymore? It seems that, every time the station flickers past, its always something airheaded or plain stupid (Bevis & Butt-head or some maschists traipsing around wearing diapers in the jungle looking for so
    • I haven't had MTV in my channel list for years. Okay, it's partially because I don't get laid enough to be taunted by watching rappers prance around with naked women. Combined with the lack of actual music, it's a no-brainer. Now if I could only get Time Warner to reimburse me...
  • After the initial enthusiasm, there seemed to be a major international die-back about 1999. I got the impression the internet stream was seen as a money losing toy and I never understood that. Just the inability of marketing and advertisers to grasp the paradigm? You know you have a listener with a stream and even if I'm only understanding 1 in 4 words coming from that station in Paris, I can sure pick out "Coca Cola".

    Digitallyimported.com rules. 4 or 5 years of vocal trance and now I can't listen to a

  • Problems with Broadcast Radio (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 14, 2005 @09:48AM (#12528851)
    I myself, due to my job, drive upwards of 10-14 hours a day. So 99% of the time im sitting in my car. I live in the bay area california, So we have quite a few broadcast radio stations, covers almost every single Music style there is. (Short of Trance/techno, which only comes on once a week in the middle of saturday night.. sigh, i love you subsonic)
    What station do I listen to? The 24/7 news station with 10 minuite Traffic and weather. If not that, I have tapes (Err im too poor to afford a CD player) of Downloaded Trance tracks you cant get anywhere else.
    Do i really want to listen to howard stern talking about how hed like to fuck some dumb bimbo because she has big boobies? Or How funny it would be for two morning talkshow hosts, who laugh at themselfs cause their so damned funny, taser their lacky? No, I don't want to listen to that crap at all, it isnt funny, and if people belive it is in *FACT* entertaining, they need to be cleansed from the world, seriously. Fart jokes, big boobies, How bush is the greatest president in the world and how they (who hide behind) freespeech is the bane of the world, is NOT actual entertainment. Its drivel to be archived on 8tracks and remembered like Disco.
    Yes Broadcasting industry, yes RIAA, yes the Entire music industry, you /SUCK/. Get with the times. Play what your customers want, or you'll lose them.
    To the RIAA/Broadcast Industry: Either Shit, or get off the pot. Seriously.
  • Formally 97.7fm in Cincinnati, Ohio, has gone internet only. We can get the best and freshest Indy rock streamed to us daily with live DJ's during most of the day and limited commercials. woxy.com by far is the best internet radio station probably on the planet. They offer a beta aacplus stream, plus high and low streams. They also have live, in-house performances and other goodies for all to enjoy. And best of all, free for the listener! http://www.woxy.com/ [woxy.com]

  • You cant PAY me to listen! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 14, 2005 @10:27AM (#12529066)
    A couple months ago, I got a call at work..

    "This is XXX radio 101 FM, and we're going to reward you if you listen to our station. If youre listening to our station right now you can win $1001 dollars!!!"

    I told them that it wasnt nearly enough money, and if they would please call back when their station wasnt a clearchannel whore, I might think about it.

    FM is so bad these days that you cant PAY me to listen to it. That should be a sign to them.
  • The Clear Channle takeover and FCC overpowering free speech has pretty damn near killed any real future for legacy broadcast radio in the US. What is the future ? I am thinking sattelite really isn't a serious contender barring a major overhaul of space based infrastructure. Its advantage now is badnwidth but I think its disadvantage in the future is bandwidth. Expensive gear and monthly fees etc... What I do see picking up along with WIFI is seeing internet radio's start to creep out into the world away fr

  • Locality (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Mike Hicks ( 244 ) * <hick0088@tc.umn.edu> on Saturday May 14, 2005 @12:00PM (#12529602) Homepage Journal
    I'm not sure if the trend is continuing, but one thing that has been noted in the past several years is that listenership to public radio has been booming. The decline in commercial radio listeners is probably more than 4%, though I couldn't say how much more. When you see that many commercial music stations only have 300 songs in their playlists but run more than 20 minutes of ads each hour (especially during drivetime), it's hard to be surprised that people are looking elsewhere.

    Some people have already mentioned "Jack FM" and other similar formats. "Like an iPod on shuffle" they say. Sure, they bump up the playlist to 1200 songs instead of 300, but you're still stuck in the '80s for the most part. They completely do away with DJs for many of these stations, so if there's a new song, you'll never know who sings it. It's not conducive to learning about new music.

    I like to hear new music. All the time. Not just one or two new songs dribbled in each week. Most radio companies seem to believe that very few people are interested in hearing new music nearly as much as I am. Maybe that's true, but I can't say for certain. Apparently at least 50 million people think that they aren't getting enough stuff over-the-air (though obviously some folks are listening to talk, or are using the cleaner online stream rather than a fuzzy AM/FM signal).

    Here in the Twin Cities, people had been getting fed up with radio. You might remember that the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis even did a "Radio Re-Volt [wired.com]" last year. Sure, there have been a handful of livable or even excellent options in the dozens of stations in the area. The top two cited were usually KFAI [kfai.org] and 770 Radio K [radiok.org]. Both had problems, though, primarily with weak signals. KFAI adds up to about 250 watts. Radio K is 5 kW, but on AM, and only during the daytime. They both stream online, which mitigates the problem a bit, but you can't trail an Ethernet cable along as you drive in your car.

    Minnesota Public Radio launched a new 'eclectic' music service called "The Current" on KCMP 89.3 FM [kcmp.org] back in January on a big 100 kW transmitter they'd bought a few months earlier for $10 million. Most of my friends listen to it (and even support it), so I think it has a good chance of surviving. No, I don't like all of the songs they play, quality varies from DJ to DJ, the DJs sometimes make mistakes, and CDs sometimes skip. But they actually have DJs, CDs, and even vinyl, and hope to eventually build a library of 50,000 albums. They have a hefty concert calendar [publicbroadcasting.net] and bring musicians in for very-nearly-live performances [publicradio.org] every day or so. Local music is in frequent rotation, and the DJs have the freedom to go talking about all sorts of random things. Yeah, there are some people who hate it (and The Morning Show [publicradio.org] is still an oddball ;-)

    Online streaming provides a bunch of great options, but it's nice to have something with a local flavor that you can talk to your friends about, and have them know about it and understand. While there are some big notable exceptions, terrestrial radio is meant to be a community affair (well, here in the U.S. where there aren't big national networks). XM can't have that, and it's fairly rare for streaming audio. Admittedly, MPR is a pretty big beast itself and has taken over a
  • Wouldn't it be nice if free 802.11 was so widespread that I could stream from shoutcast in my car while driving cross country? But I digress :)

    I listen to streamed music most of the day. I found a lot of music that I love that I would never have been exposed to otherwise. But It is good to listen to the local radio on the way to/from work, as I learn about local events that are going on (which bars/clubs will the good bands and hot women be at on any given night? What is the traffic like, and should I
  • Of all the radio companies (not that there are many left) with something to lose from the satellite radio revolution, ClearChannel has the most to lose. Their "new-age payola" system of leveraging their radio station playlists to boost ticket sales at their concert venues will fall apart as more people switch to satellite radio. If they don't figure out some way to work in the new regime, ClearChannel will soon be "that billboard company".

  • I have become dependent on podcasting for my radio needs. As I use the web for news and weather, "radio" for me has become just entertainment. My favorite podcasts include (please use Google) Adam Curry, Spacemusic, Dawn and Drew, Hometown Tales, Bicyclemark, etc. No commercials (well, YMMV if you count promos as commercials) and if you hit something that you don't like or don't want to hear, there's always fast forward. And it's different. Every day.
  • I believe that. The ones that will survive are the ones that are least popular today, the ones that 99.9% of slashdot or other reders have not heard of. I am not even sure there are any in USA, where only what caters to the lowest common denominator, will survive.

    Those radio stations are dedicated to classical music. I believe they will continue broadcasting, because those that listen to them will continue to listen.

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