FM radio

[hm insulators]

How about a channel that plays rock and roll - all of it - from Bill Haley & His Comets all the way up to what comes out of the studios now (but no rap, please).

An expanded Jack FM - while flipping the middle finger to those demographic-obsessed radio programmers?

This might come fairly close to your standards: www.kcdx.com

This is a little station out of Florence, Arizona that plays all kinds of stuff; I've heard everything from Little Richard to U2 on this station. Every now and then, they'll throw in a segue that will throw you into a tizzy: they'll play a slow, mellow Billy Joel or Chicago ballad one song, and the next might be something by AC/DC or Foghat. (Once I heard the Mamas and the Papas' "California Dreamin'" and the next song was "Turn Up the Radio" by the obscure 1980s hair metal band Autograph.)

[golden eagle]

I love radio! I also don't listen to CDs when traveling by myself. At the same time, I also hate what's happened to the medium with all of the consolidation that's led to corporatized playlists and automation. Bring back more live and local radio!

[A.J. Bertin]

When I travel, I usually listen to a combination of four things: local FM radio stations, SiriusXM, some CDs I bring, and silence. I have a CD collection that contains well over 500 CDs, and I always have several of them on hand when I travel. Between radio markets of any significance, I'll usually listen to the CDs or my favorite SiriusXM stations: '80s on 8, '90s on 9, The Pulse, Z100/New York, WLTW/New York, Pop 2K, The Blend, Love, BPM, Electric Area, and Watercolors. As I enter radio markets and their suburban areas, I'll usually switch from SiriusXM to FM. Before I leave home, I always research the radio markets in advance to see what stations I will want to listen to... various formats, CHR (Top 40), Mainstream Adult Contemporary, Hot Adult Contemporary, Rhythmic Adult Contemporary, Variety Hits, Adult Hits, Classic Hits, Contemporary Christian, or Smooth Jazz (not like Smooth Jazz is around much anymore, but still).

When I'm close to home, I will usually switch back and forth between SiriusXM and FM. I don't like to lose touch with what my local market's stations are playing - even if they are corporate owned and don't have much local flavor (other than a few live DJs who have no say in what's being played).

I love SiriusXM and have been on a kick lately of listening to the electronic dance music stations (BPM and Electric Area), but the playlists on all the SiriusXM stations seem to be shrinking. I'm starting to hear many of the same songs again and again, so it's starting to have the same problem that FM is having. However, the good thing about SiriusXM is that they often play obscure songs/artists that no FM station will touch anymore.

Regarding FM radio, another thing I LOVE to do is stream radio stations from other locations. There are some incredible FM stations that play rare music that very few (if any) other FM stations will play. For instance, there's a Supersoft AC station out of Miami that I always stream at work: Easy 93.1 (www.easy93.com) . I particularly enjoy listening to soft music at work because it keeps me sane. Another station I just discovered is a classic pop/CHR station (focusing on a lot of pop hits from the '80s, '90s, and '00s) out of Reno NV. Here's their website: www.1063popfm.com

What formats or genres of music does everyone else like?

[kphoger]

and silence

Actually, this is how we spend most of our time on long trips–no music at all, and very little conversation.  We just don't seem to have a constant need for sound to keep us going.  I know there are others out there who would go nuts like that, though.

[agentsteel53]

I particularly enjoy listening to soft music at work because it keeps me sane.

the problem with FM radio, which manifests itself extra jarringly for soft rock, is that the commercials are always extra loud and in-your-face.  there's something unpleasant about following a block of songs, all with a particular volume and mood, with "J. D. PIGSHIT VOLVO TOYOTA FORD NISSAN STUDEBAKER FOREMAN GRILL WANTS TO SHOVE A BRAND NEW INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER INTO YOUR PIEHOLE RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!!!!!!"

[kphoger]

J. D. PIGSHIT VOLVO TOYOTA FORD NISSAN STUDEBAKER FOREMAN GRILL WANTS TO SHOVE A BRAND NEW INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER INTO YOUR PIEHOLE RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!!!!!!

LOL very much hard

[A.J. Bertin]

and silence

Actually, this is how we spend most of our time on long trips—no music at all, and very little conversation.  We just don't seem to have a constant need for sound to keep us going.  I know there are others out there who would go nuts like that, though.

Yep. Sometimes it is very nice to drive in silence and just enjoy the scenery of the roads while being able to just listen to yourself think. It's never a bad thing to simply be alone with your thoughts for a while.

[kurumi]

The deaths of the following formats stand out:

Album-oriented rock: a mix of stuff from about 1966 to present, and not just the singles. Yes, mostly guitar-based and mostly white. Much of the great R+B/funk from the '70s had to be discovered independently. AOR seemed to die circa 1985-87 when the classic acts released a bunch of disappointing to terrible albums (Heart, Rush, Yes, Genesis) and late '80s tropes took over

Top 40 pop that had something for everyone. In the '70s, you'd have a ballad, followed by country, followed by Steely Dan, then a disco song, then Van Halen, then Skynyrd, ... If you didn't like the current song, you probably wouldn't mind the next one. Now there's much more of a monoculture of Woooo wooo party dance girl tonight mix jam. If you don't like the current song on Party 99 you probably won't like 99% of them.

Citation: Top 100 songs of 1978. There's a lot of disco. But there's also Clapton, Stones, Wings, Queen, Carly Simon...

[thenetwork]

I was born & raised in the days of old-school radio, when music was still heard widely on AM radio.  I went to college for radio broadcasting and I could go on and on to what's wrong with radio today and what most of the big radio conglomerates should do if they want to improve their ratings and to make a boatload of money.  This refers specifically to non-current music genres of today (AOR, Classic Hits, Oldies,...).

1) Bring back the personalities and give them the free rein of their shows & music playlists -- Why do people choose Letterman over Leno over Kimmel over Conan...?  The same guests appear on all the late night shows over time talking up the same movies, shows or things going on in their lives.  So why is one show better than the other?  Because of the PERSONALITY and the little original creative things each of them do on their shows.  It's not about the guests, it's about the show.  If they bring your ratings down on a regular basis, then you get rid of them.  Which brings me to my next point.

2) Be different than ALL your competitors -- whether they are in the same town or elsewhere.  You don't need to force feed us the same Mix, Jack, Magic or Kool format & playlist down our throats every 50 miles along the interstate.  It's nice to know that there is a McDonalds in every town if you want the same food every meal, but the restaurants that most people talk about in each town and spend more time at are the one-of-a-kinds who have a specialty that no other restaurant has -- whether it's the menu items, decor, presentation, or staff.   If your station wants more "sit down" listeners than quick drive-thrus, you have to be different and creative, else you go out of business.

3) Play everything in your genre.  If you are an oldies/classic hits station, for example and your range of music years goes 25 years wide, then play ALL the music from those years (FACT:  According to Billboard, there were over 13,000 top 100 charted songs from 1955-1979.  All of those songs were in a heavy rotation at one time or another on a top-40 station in your town at one time or another.  Throw in a few thousand more songs that weren't Billboard hits, but rather regional or local hits only and you now have 15,000 songs to play with.  Yet out of these 15,000 songs, they play only 300 of them??? 

4) Rotate the songs in and out of your playlist to avoid burnout.  You can probably name 10 songs right off the top of your head that are played ad nauseum on your local stations (Brown Eyed Girl, Monday Monday, Jack & Diane,...) One way to avoid burning non-top 40 songs to a crisp is to give them a rest after a couple of months.  One idea:  Use the old Billboard charts as reference!  If an Eagles song first hit the charts in the spring of 1977 for 13 weeks, then play it in a regular rotation for that long this spring, play it half as much in the summer & fall, then not at all over the winter.  Now you have just avoided overplaying of the song while keeping the playlist always fresh and different from week to week!

5) Daypart your music -- Match the music with the time of day or where the person may be.  Many of the stations I listened to back in the day would play certain hits during certain times of the day....Why?  Because back in the day a top 40 chart would see Aerosmith and Debby Boone and Dolly Parton.  Waking up to Aerosmith may not be the best time to play it, but then I don't want to be coming out of work on a Friday at 5PM either all hyped and then I turn my car on and hear "You Light Up My Life" to kick off my weekend.  Match the music to the place where the majority of your listeners are:  Bright, uptempo, not-too hard music in the morning, easier "boss will let you listen to it at work" music in the afternoon, harder more upbeat music in the evening and a slow transition back to the morning mood overnight.

6) EVERY station is your competition.  Back in the day, one company owned, at most, ONE AM and ONE FM station.  You did everything you could to get as much of that ratings pie as possible every day.  Nowadays, these big conglomerates don't care as much -- just as long as the total ratings of all FIVE of their stations is bigger than the total of all FIVE of their conglomerate competitor's stations. Plus there is now usually one salesperson/promotions person/program director for most, if not all of their 5 stations, so they have to treat them equally and fairly.  Plus, since they now handle five stations, they don't have time to be creative anymore, which goes back to point #1.

Never talk down to your audience  Jack FM radio formats boast, "We play what WE want to play".  But does that mean that's also what your listeners want to hear? --Nuff Said.

That are just some of the reasons why radio is such a toxic cesspool that it is.  If there is a struggling radio station or two out there who would like me to put these ideas into motion, sign me up to a 4-year contract at $60,000 a year minimum and I will turn your station around.

[agentsteel53]

Waking up to Aerosmith may not be the best time to play it, but then I don't want to be coming out of work on a Friday at 5PM either all hyped and then I turn my car on and hear "You Light Up My Life" to kick off my weekend.  Match the music to the place where the majority of your listeners are:  Bright, uptempo, not-too hard music in the morning, easier "boss will let you listen to it at work" music in the afternoon, harder more upbeat music in the evening and a slow transition back to the morning mood overnight.

interesting that I'd switch the two.  I'd want some Aerosmith or what have you to get me going in the morning, and then on the drive home and when I'm ready to go out, some P-Funk.

[kphoger]

Never talk down to your audience  Jack FM radio formats boast, "We play what WE want to play".  But does that mean that's also what your listeners want to hear? --Nuff Said.

Actually, that's what draws me to stations like that.  In my head, I used to imagine a DJ alone in a small building, pulling out his favorite records and playing tracks from them; the survival of his station depended on how many people wanted to hear the music he played.  Hearing a slogan like "We play what WE want to play" takes me back to that kind of image.  It lets me imagine I might actually hear a song that 624 other radio stations aren't already playing.

Waking up to Aerosmith may not be the best time to play it, but then I don't want to be coming out of work on a Friday at 5PM either all hyped and then I turn my car on and hear "You Light Up My Life" to kick off my weekend.  Match the music to the place where the majority of your listeners are:  Bright, uptempo, not-too hard music in the morning, easier "boss will let you listen to it at work" music in the afternoon, harder more upbeat music in the evening and a slow transition back to the morning mood overnight.

interesting that I'd switch the two.  I'd want some Aerosmith or what have you to get me going in the morning, and then on the drive home and when I'm ready to go out, some P-Funk.

Likewise.  If the music is quiet and soothing, then I'm never going to get out of bed.  In fact, the more loud and obnoxious the music, the more likely I am to get up and turn the darned thing off.

[thenetwork]

Never talk down to your audience  Jack FM radio formats boast, "We play what WE want to play".  But does that mean that's also what your listeners want to hear? --Nuff Said.

Actually, that's what draws me to stations like that.  In my head, I used to imagine a DJ alone in a small building, pulling out his favorite records and playing tracks from them; the survival of his station depended on how many people wanted to hear the music he played.  Hearing a slogan like "We play what WE want to play" takes me back to that kind of image.  It lets me imagine I might actually hear a song that 624 other radio stations aren't already playing.

Waking up to Aerosmith may not be the best time to play it, but then I don't want to be coming out of work on a Friday at 5PM either all hyped and then I turn my car on and hear "You Light Up My Life" to kick off my weekend.  Match the music to the place where the majority of your listeners are:  Bright, uptempo, not-too hard music in the morning, easier "boss will let you listen to it at work" music in the afternoon, harder more upbeat music in the evening and a slow transition back to the morning mood overnight.

interesting that I'd switch the two.  I'd want some Aerosmith or what have you to get me going in the morning, and then on the drive home and when I'm ready to go out, some P-Funk.

Likewise.  If the music is quiet and soothing, then I'm never going to get out of bed.  In fact, the more loud and obnoxious the music, the more likely I am to get up and turn the darned thing off.

I was thinking of more the Classic Hits/Oldies format than an AOR/Hard Rock station which is more of a hard & heavy 24/7. The latter type of station doesn't need/can't do much day-parting.  I'm talking formats that at one time used to play both ends of the tempo spectrum on a regular basis. 

And besides, even back in the day, even your top 40 stations that played some "familiar, peppy" tunes didn't play much in AM drive -- most did traffic & weather every 15-20 minutes, 5-minute news & 2-minute sportscasts twice and hour, a couple of extended DJ patters per hour. Then add in about 8-10 minutes of commercials per hour and you already ate up close to 45 minutes of air time...Just enough time to get maybe 5-7 songs in per hour at most.

As far as the "We Play What WE want to play" moniker, I still consider "We" as the corporate suits in some far off home office who don't give a rat's arse as to the specific music that gave that particular city their own sound.  No matter how you slice it, it's still the exact same 300 "safe songs" plus maybe 150 more that all Jack FM stations play from coast to coast out of how many THOUSANDS of equally good tracks from the exact same years??

[agentsteel53]

And besides, even back in the day, even your top 40 stations that played some "familiar, peppy" tunes didn't play much in AM drive -- most did traffic & weather every 15-20 minutes, 5-minute news & 2-minute sportscasts twice and hour, a couple of extended DJ patters per hour. Then add in about 8-10 minutes of commercials per hour and you already ate up close to 45 minutes of air time...Just enough time to get maybe 5-7 songs in per hour at most.

that sounds terrifying.  I'd have installed a Victrola in my Hudson!

[US81]

5) Daypart your music -- Match the music with the time of day or where the person may be.  Many of the stations I listened to back in the day would play certain hits during certain times of the day....Why?  Because back in the day a top 40 chart would see Aerosmith and Debby Boone and Dolly Parton.  Waking up to Aerosmith may not be the best time to play it, but then I don't want to be coming out of work on a Friday at 5PM either all hyped and then I turn my car on and hear "You Light Up My Life" to kick off my weekend.  Match the music to the place where the majority of your listeners are:  Bright, uptempo, not-too hard music in the morning, easier "boss will let you listen to it at work" music in the afternoon, harder more upbeat music in the evening and a slow transition back to the morning mood overnight.

Plenty of those who would be radio listeners (or were listeners back in the days before mp3 players) are working odd shifts or maybe using the radio to help be alert staying up at night.  It was always nice to have different formats that could be sampled at any time of day and be "what was needed"  - eg, classical for that brief nap you might get, hard rock for waking up after, interesting (not polarized political) news talk for the drive, etc.  Still out there, harder to find in some markets, although streaming can often fill the gap.

[kphoger]

5) Daypart your music -- Match the music with the time of day or where the person may be.  Many of the stations I listened to back in the day would play certain hits during certain times of the day....Why?  Because back in the day a top 40 chart would see Aerosmith and Debby Boone and Dolly Parton.  Waking up to Aerosmith may not be the best time to play it, but then I don't want to be coming out of work on a Friday at 5PM either all hyped and then I turn my car on and hear "You Light Up My Life" to kick off my weekend.  Match the music to the place where the majority of your listeners are:  Bright, uptempo, not-too hard music in the morning, easier "boss will let you listen to it at work" music in the afternoon, harder more upbeat music in the evening and a slow transition back to the morning mood overnight.

Plenty of those who would be radio listeners (or were listeners back in the days before mp3 players) are working odd shifts or maybe using the radio to help be alert staying up at night.  It was always nice to have different formats that could be sampled at any time of day and be "what was needed"  - eg, classical for that brief nap you might get, hard rock for waking up after, interesting (not polarized political) news talk for the drive, etc.  Still out there, harder to find in some markets, although streaming can often fill the gap.

For a while, public radio played techno in the evenings in central Kansas.  I typically don't like techno, but it worked well for keeping me awake on the road after dark.

[DTComposer]

I personally agree with a lot of the points made about the narrow playlists, inability to tell one station in one city from another in another city, etc. I especially agree with the McDonald's analogy.

But if there was truly such a clamoring for stations with more diverse playlists of both songs and genres, wouldn't they already exist? If corporate radio thought such a thing would bring revenue and listeners, they'd have already done it in all the major markets.

I live in the second largest media market in the country, one of the music and entertainment centers of the world, with millions and millions of incredibly diverse listeners. Yet somehow, all of the Top 40/Classic Rock/Adult Hits/Alternative stations have the same small playlists you'll find on those stations in other cities. If this mythical 15,000-song playlist could succeed anywhere, it would be Los Angeles (there are shows like Morning Becomes Eclectic, but they are slivers of a public radio station's programming day).

I hear/read a lot of commentary about the blandness of radio, food and retail, every city looks/sounds the same, etc. But McDonald's, Starbucks, Wal-Mart and the Jack format exist, and succeed, for a reason. At the end of the day, the majority people want convenient, familiar, and quality control. Their two-shot non-fat latte will taste the same, no matter what neighborhood, city or state they're in. The lawn mower they saw in Tulsa will be available when they're ready to buy back home in Boise. People don't want to be surprised, or disappointed, so they don't want to take risks. They feel challenged enough by their jobs, their economic situation, their personal lives, and the fears and threats of the "real world." Hearing Mumford and Sons every fifth song is the 21st Century equivalent of gathering around the living room radio to listen to Jack Benny every week - it's comfort food.

Listening to music (really listening, not just hearing) requires the use of a certain part of our brains that gets "frozen" at a certain point - it's why most people's taste in music remains rooted in what they liked as adolescents or young adults - and with the amount of crap adults are bombarded with day to day, it's just too much of an investment of time and energy for most people.

I'm not saying any of this is good by any means, but it seems to be where we are today.

[The High Plains Traveler]

Driving on state highways (not interstates) from Rapid City to Pueblo yesterday, I tuned into a station from Sterling, CO and after awhile had a startling revelation. They had a live. local DJ playing music he liked, and not a satellite feed.  How often do you find that? (I'm talking to you, Clone Channel).

[cpzilliacus]

The deaths of the following formats stand out:

Album-oriented rock: a mix of stuff from about 1966 to present, and not just the singles. Yes, mostly guitar-based and mostly white. Much of the great R+B/funk from the '70s had to be discovered independently. AOR seemed to die circa 1985-87 when the classic acts released a bunch of disappointing to terrible albums (Heart, Rush, Yes, Genesis) and late '80s tropes took over

Agreed - to a point - as I asserted upthread, most AOR programmers played way, way, way too much Led Zeppelin.  AOR after MTV made its debut in 1981 benefited greatly from the acts that made their way on the air with  videos, and it resulted in less Led Zeppelin getting airplay.

Top 40 pop that had something for everyone. In the '70s, you'd have a ballad, followed by country, followed by Steely Dan, then a disco song, then Van Halen, then Skynyrd, ... If you didn't like the current song, you probably wouldn't mind the next one. Now there's much more of a monoculture of Woooo wooo party dance girl tonight mix jam. If you don't like the current song on Party 99 you probably won't like 99% of them.

Citation: Top 100 songs of 1978. There's a lot of disco. But there's also Clapton, Stones, Wings, Queen, Carly Simon...

I strongly agree.  One of the early Top 40 blowtorch stations on FM was WPGC in the Washington and Baltimore media markets (tribute site here).  In its late 1960's through mid-1970's heyday, it played all of that stuff.  Some people are astounded at how much "old-timey" R&B I know.  That's because of WPGC. 

WPGC had a daytime-only AM companion, but the emphasis was on getting listeners to tune to FM, and it was one of the earlier Top-40's to broadcast in stereo.

The station is still on the air, but it is now owned by CBS and "is an urban-leaning rhythmic-formatted station" (according to Wikipedia) with plenty of rap, which means I don't listen - ever (though that may be what its management desires).

[Brandon]

Driving on state highways (not interstates) from Rapid City to Pueblo yesterday, I tuned into a station from Sterling, CO and after awhile had a startling revelation. They had a live. local DJ playing music he liked, and not a satellite feed.  How often do you find that? (I'm talking to you, Clone Channel).

Um, a lot of stations here in Chicagoland.  It's either a local DJ playing the music or a local program director choosing the music.  Even the Clear Channel ones buck the Clone Channel trend.

[Alps]

Driving on state highways (not interstates) from Rapid City to Pueblo yesterday, I tuned into a station from Sterling, CO and after awhile had a startling revelation. They had a live. local DJ playing music he liked, and not a satellite feed.  How often do you find that? (I'm talking to you, Clone Channel).

Um, a lot of stations here in Chicagoland.  It's either a local DJ playing the music or a local program director choosing the music.  Even the Clear Channel ones buck the Clone Channel trend.

Seems to be an urban vs. rural phenomenon, though then again, in rural areas the metro station often is much more powerful, so I'm picking up St. Louis over 100 miles away.

[thenetwork]

Driving on state highways (not interstates) from Rapid City to Pueblo yesterday, I tuned into a station from Sterling, CO and after awhile had a startling revelation. They had a live. local DJ playing music he liked, and not a satellite feed.  How often do you find that? (I'm talking to you, Clone Channel).

Um, a lot of stations here in Chicagoland.  It's either a local DJ playing the music or a local program director choosing the music.  Even the Clear Channel ones buck the Clone Channel trend.

Seems to be an urban vs. rural phenomenon, though then again, in rural areas the metro station often is much more powerful, so I'm picking up St. Louis over 100 miles away.

Chicago, New York, L.A. will have most of their stations with live, local jocks.  But once you leave those big markets, many of those "local" jocks (outside of morning or afternoon drive) are actually air personalities that either pre-record, or voice-track for multiple stations -- sometimes within the same building, sometimes voicetracking for several stations in several different cities, sometimes hours or days in advance not knowing what the mood of the city will be at the time.  You could have had a severe storm come through flooding roads and toppling trees, and yet the pre-recorded, so-called "local" jock will still sound like everything's sunshine, ice cream and puppies.

They have recently gone as far as having people do traffic reports from a hub city doing reports for a city they are not even in!!!  They rely solely on information from local sources over the internet, but can they really "personalize" the reports like actual locals can?  I used to love helicopter traffic reports who would fly over the jams and could tell you first hand what best alternatives you should take.  Most of these out-of-town traffic reporters may just name off a common alternative route not knowing if that alternate is any better.  Most just say, 'avoid the area' or 'find another route' because they don't really know -- they are 150-200 miles away!

And as far as someone playing music they like, it is very rare that they can play anything and everything they like, since most of the big conglomerates provide their stations with a limited list of "safe songs".  In other words, music that a) is politically correct, b) won't offend others and c) are tunes that some focus group hundreds, if not thousands of miles away think are all the songs a city they have never lived in want to hear over and over again.

[agentsteel53]

interesting (not polarized political) news talk for the drive

am I the only one who absolutely loathes talk?  in any form?  if the radio says "you are listening to ...", I mutter "no I'm not" and change the station.

satellite at late-night hours comes the closest to having a non-stop block of music with no interruption.

[cpzilliacus]

They have recently gone as far as having people do traffic reports from a hub city doing reports for a city they are not even in!!!  They rely solely on information from local sources over the internet, but can they really "personalize" the reports like actual locals can?  I used to love helicopter traffic reports who would fly over the jams and could tell you first hand what best alternatives you should take.  Most of these out-of-town traffic reporters may just name off a common alternative route not knowing if that alternate is any better.  Most just say, 'avoid the area' or 'find another route' because they don't really know -- they are 150-200 miles away!

That is not a new innovation. 

There are companies that sell or barter traffic reports to radio stations in exchange for a short commercial plug at the end of the report ("this traffic report is brought to you by ..."), and many of those radio station managers don't care about  the quality of those reports, and don't care if the person reading the report is in a different metropolitan area.

The serious traffic reports (usually, but not always, on all-news or news-talk formatted stations) tend to come from a place that's local, and in some cases, from an in-house traffic reporting staff. 

[Dr Frankenstein]

Song burnout is what I hate the most about most modern radio stations. I made a personal study about the station I tune the most often to, and I found a whopping 50 songs that are played at least once every two days, and the study covers only my working hours, when I can listen and take notes.

Add weekly (at least) players and you're already at 200 songs.

All of that is out of a tiny pool of only 1,779 songs that have played at least twice. I started collecting data in July 2011. That's terrible.

I posted a snapshot of the report at the time of writing this here: http://pastebin.com/bdaAisXW

Note that the first three entries were just introduced into the rotation this week, and that usually means very heavy play for a week or so, which makes my algorithm bump them at the top for a few days. I also noticed that some other songs that are high in the ranking received a lot of heavy play in the past (for a few months), then were almost completely pulled from the rotation, but it takes a while for them to sink in the list.

In fact, that station used to be pretty good until it got bought by a local broadcasting giant, and things went downhill from there. Steeply. They've been hemorraging listeners ever since and two announcers slammed the door over "disagreements with management", I.O.W, they could no longer have a say over what happens or what plays in their show. Oh, and they started playing Nickelback and Mumford & Sons heavily.

Regarding Sirius XM, I checked the prices lately and... just no. I will never pay this much for something I'll almost only listen to while in my car. It's not nearly worth it, even to get rid of the ads.

[The High Plains Traveler]

Song burnout is what I hate the most about most modern radio stations. I made a personal study about the station I tune the most often to, and I found a whopping 50 songs that are played at least once every two days, and the study covers only my working hours, when I can listen and take notes.


* * *
Regarding Sirius XM, I checked the prices lately and... just no. I will never pay this much for something I'll almost only listen to while in my car. It's not nearly worth it, even to get rid of the ads.

As long as I've lived here (11 years), the Colorado Springs-Pueblo FM market has sucked big time. Smaller and larger markets have stations much more to my liking, since I'm not a "classic rock", as usually it's usually defined for radio format, nor a country fan. But recently, one station - locally owned and with live DJs - has adopted a format close to what I consider ideal. When I lived in the Twin Cities, I always listened to Cities 97 (KTCZ), and it has a nearly identical format sister station in Denver (KBCO), which is unfortunately outside my range of reception at home. (Here I have to somewhat eat my "Clone Channel" comment above, since these are both owned by that otherwise objectionable company). 

But, like many stations playing new music, this local station seems to overplay certain music. Do I really need to hear "Sweater Weather" every hour?  I don't know what financial incentives stations have to promote certain music, but when I hear something repeated so much I have visions of the "payola" scandal of the era before I was listening to radio.