How do you primarily consume media when on a long drive? (2025 Edition)

[vdeane]

I would have done this as a checkbox poll rather than a radio button (pun not intended) one since for me it varies by where I am and day/time.  I always listen to FM radio when I'm in range of one of my presents, so I guess that's the best option for me, but when outside of range, it varies.  Usually, it's just the sound of the road, but there are times when I'll hook up my phone via the aux cable; I've done that to stream the All Access Star Trek podcast, the weekly broadcast of Throwback 2K on Wink106.1, and the Fly Morning Rush (via Fly92.3 online) one Friday morning (I like their on-deck party mix and the throwbacks they play in the "Fly Pod" for the last hour of the morning show on Fridays).  I do have my library of downloaded MP3s on my phone as well, though I've never felt the need to play them in the car (although that would probably be easier if I had playlists set up).

My current preset system:

Code Select Expand

FM 1:
1. 92.3     Albany, NY (WFLY)
2. 105.5    Little Falls, NY (WSKU)
3. 93.1     Syracuse, NY (WNTQ)/Springfield, MA (WHYN)
4. 98.9     Rochester, NY (WBZA)
5. 104.1    Buffalo, NY (WHTT)/Boston, MA (WWBX)
6. 93.3     Watertown, NY (WCIZ)

FM 2:
1. 92.3     Albany, NY (WFLY)
2. 92.9     Kingston, NY (WBPM)/Burlington, VT (WEZF)
3. 101.1    New York, NY (WCBS)
4. 103.1    Oneonta, NY (WZOZ)
5. 101.7    Binghamton, NY (WLTB)
6. 106.1    Corning, NY (WNKI)/Liberty, NY (WPDA)/Claremont, NH (WHDQ)/
            Ottawa, ON (CHEZ)

Other:
   96.9     Montréal, QC (CKOI)*

*This was originally FM 1 preset 2 along with WOUR from Utica, NY, but I've since changed that preset (I haven't liked WOUR as much since they were bought by Townsquare Media a few years back (especially the all-talk syndicated morning show; thankfully, I wasn't usually driving through during morning AM hours), but the straw that broke the camel's back was when they reduced their operating power something around Christmas.  I thought it was a temporary technical issue, but when it was still like that on Martin Luther King Day, I switched the preset, as the reduced power resulted in a 15 mile radio-free gap on the Thruway.  I like CKOI enough that I wanted to leave the note, but realistically, I don't feel like I go north of the border enough to adjust FM 2 to put it back on officially; it would be easy to delete the second listing of WFLY, move 2 and 3 down, and make it preset 3, but having WFLY on both makes switching easier.  If the situation changes, I can revisit this.

Now that that's out of the way...am I the only one who kind of hates the terminology of "consuming" media?

I don't like references to "consumers" in general.  It reduces everything to economics, as if other considerations don't matter.

[Rothman]

My personal tradition when making the 3-hour slog from Shreveport to Lafayette was to play a System of a Down CD the whole way. There were no radio stations of note the entire way other than the outset where Shreveport had a pretty good album rock station.

There's no way I could just raw-dog it and listen to the pavement.

Do you go to the party to have a good time?

[TheCatalyst31]

For me, I usually bring a handful of CDs on longer trips, and I switch between those and terrestrial radio depending on my mood and if there's a good station in the area. I would stream a lot more music if my car's Bluetooth system worked like it's supposed to, but fixing that would mean either a trip to the dealership or attempting a manual software update, and I haven't been bothered to do either.

[1995hoo]

I seldom listen to FM radio except in local driving when I want to tune in the traffic reports on WTOP. For long-distance driving I generally don't know which stations have traffic reports and I'm not usually inclined to scan everything to find one.

I'm rarely driving anywhere I need to know the traffic report and, in the rare case I'd find it useful, I wouldn't really know a good alternate route anyway. ....

No doubt part of this is a function of where one lives. Living in the DC area, I've long found that it's essential to know multiple routes to get anywhere and to be able to change routes in a pinch when something happens. The other factor that makes the traffic reports important is the Potomac River—if I'm headed into DC, there are a limited number of bridges available. Had I been headed into the city yesterday morning, which for me would have most likely meant going to Union Station to catch the train to New York, it would have been essential to know that a car fire on the Virginia side was bogging down the traffic so that I could have both left earlier and gone a different way.

I certainly concede traffic reports are far less useful when I'm driving somewhere other than the DC area.

[ZLoth]

From my perspective, if it's a short trip (to the grocery store), I usually just listen to WRR 101.1 which is the non-commercial classical music station in the Dallas-Fort Worth Radio Market. I generally shun the commercial stations because of the ratio of commercials, jibber-jabber, and actual content. I think this is why some folks subscribe to Spotify, SiriusXM, Pandoria, or Apple Music... to actually listen to music.

While my vehicle has both a USB port and a CD player, I only used the CD player a handful of times. My big concern was that the vehicle has Bluetooth connectivity. I prefer to self-host my services, and while Plex media server has been running for several years, AudioBookShelf was set up for audiobooks early last year. Because of data limits, I initially downloaded the media to my phone, but since my current mobile plan has unlimited data, I can focus on streaming.

One app that I do use on occassion is Radio Garden which is an excellent app for finding stations that are streaming from around the world including the NOAA weather stations. This includes stations from where I used to live as well as KUNV. In my opinion, the streaming feed from WRR is better than the OTA feed.

Thus, I selected streaming as my primary reason for consuming media.

[CoreySamson]

My long drives are mostly a mixture of streaming music on Spotify and silence. Maybe if I'm bored I'll turn on the radio and find some kind of sermon or Christian music to listen to.

[JayhawkCO]

My long drives are mostly a mixture of streaming music on Spotify and silence. Maybe if I'm bored I'll turn on the radio and find some kind of sermon or Christian music to listen to.

To each their own, but that wouldn't decrease my level of boredom.

[DTComposer]

Nearly all of my long drives (1 hour+) include my wife and son, and we have something of a pattern:

-If one of our teams are playing, the play-by-play (via local broadcast, SiriusXM, or the MLB app). Otherwise:
-All (or most) of an album that we all enjoy (right now the two in heaviest rotation are the soundtracks to Come From Away and Hamilton)
-Each person listens to their own podcast or playlist
-Rotate between a handful of SiriusXM channels ('40s Junction, Beatles, Classic Vinyl, First Wave, Lithium, Alt Nation)

When I was driving back and forth between home and college (about 4 hours) I had mixtapes that I played regularly enough that when I drive that route now, certain cities will put certain songs right in my head.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

Just the radio. Unlike in the US, over here most stations are part of a network, and the radio does the work of picking up the next frequency by matching a code shared by all stations of the network called programme identification (PI).

[hbelkins]

Podcasts (pre-downloaded) and my MP3 collection.

[Scott5114]

One app that I do use on occassion is Radio Garden which is an excellent app for finding stations that are streaming from around the world including the NOAA weather stations. This includes stations from where I used to live as well as KUNV. In my opinion, the streaming feed from WRR is better than the OTA feed.

I normally listen to KUNV over the air, but I also stream it occasionally from their app. It shows a list of songs that they've recently played, which is nice because much of what they play has no lyrics, so there's nothing to type into Google to find the title and artist. You can also add songs to a list of "favorites". The DJs mention occasionally that the number of favorites actually influences how often they play a given song. Anecdotally, I have noticed that when I favorite a song it does seem to get played more frequently, so I'm guessing there must not be many people using that feature.

[Henry]

Going with SiriusXM, although in the past, I've also taken a bunch of tapes and CDs (depending on what player the car had) for a road trip.

[ZLoth]

I normally listen to KUNV over the air, but I also stream it occasionally from their app. It shows a list of songs that they've recently played, which is nice because much of what they play has no lyrics, so there's nothing to type into Google to find the title and artist. You can also add songs to a list of "favorites".

Interactive radio... nice! It's also nice when you can view the playlist on the website.

[Ted$8roadFan]

I still listen to terrestrial, traditional radio on my drives. I must say though that the homogenization of radio stations has meant too many stations that sound the same, and too many with similar formats.

[MikeTheActuary]

My audio distraction in the car consists of:

• Streamed music
• Auto-downloaded podcasts
• Manually-downloaded audiobooks

Short (<90 minute) drives are usually streamed music or podcasts, depending on mood or whether my wife (who hates my tastes in podcasts) is with me.

Longer drives are usually audiobooks or podcasts.  Having them downloaded is good, because at least of uncertain cellular coverage, and to maintain consistency with my drives home from Montréal (poor cellular reception on I-87 along the Adirondacks).

Also, I haven't found a streaming service that serves up podcasts the way that I prefer to listen to them (I subscribe to several, and generally just want the most recent unplayed episode to be playing), and having just one or two downloaded books on the phone is easier than hunting for the correct book out of several available for streaming (especially if commanding the phone by voice).

I haven't listened to local broadcast radio in years.  My phone does an adequate job delivering traffic or weather information sufficient for my needs, and I wouldn't want to have to argue with my car's infotainment system to find "the right" station anyway.   I do, however, occasionally DX MW and SW broadcast stations from home.

[ZLoth]

I still listen to terrestrial, traditional radio on my drives. I must say though that the homogenization of radio stations has meant too many stations that sound the same, or with similar formats.

Unfortunately, too true.

[oscar]

I still listen to terrestrial, traditional radio on my drives. I must say though that the homogenization of radio stations has meant too many stations that sound the same, and too many with similar formats.

This seems to be an old problem, at least in rural areas. When I drove around the Midwest, in 1996, it was really hard to escape Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura.

[bandit957]

I use regular radio, even though it's lousy compared to 40 years ago.

A family member does have Sirius XM, but there's no way I'd pay for something that doesn't even have local content, when regular radio is free. But regular radio doesn't have much local content anymore either. Even if all you need is a brief report on a traffic jam, you can turn to the biggest station in town and they would instead be playing a rebroadcast from a week ago of some has-been talk show host.

[ZLoth]

when regular radio is free.

Regular radio isn't "free". If you aren't paying for the product, then you are the product in terms of demographics, thus advertising surrounded by content.

[Rothman]

Used regular radio for the first time in years on a short drive.  It was some classic rock station that promised something like 40 minutes of non-stop music...that then proceeded to play a commercial between every song.  Back in my day, non-stop music meant non-stop music, with maybe just an announcement of the station identification between songs.

[Rothman]

when regular radio is free.

Regular radio isn't "free". If you aren't paying for the product, then you are the product in terms of demographics, thus advertising surrounded by content.

There seems to be much less of an ability to accurately track the demographics of FM radio listeners than newer forms of media consumption...

[bandit957]

Used regular radio for the first time in years on a short drive.  It was some classic rock station that promised something like 40 minutes of non-stop music...that then proceeded to play a commercial between every song.  Back in my day, non-stop music meant non-stop music, with maybe just an announcement of the station identification between songs.

There used to be fewer commercials back then too.

I remember WLAP-FM making a big issue of its "no-talk 3 in a row." They would play 3 songs in a row that didn't even have a station ID between them. I could pick up this station pretty well in Highland Heights.

[hotdogPi]

Back in my day, non-stop music meant non-stop music, with maybe just an announcement of the station identification between songs.

I think it still generally does. Either your station was outright lying, or you tuned in right at the end of the 40 minutes.

A station I know of that does 2 hours of commercial-free music during morning rush hour is accurate to what it says. I don't remember if there's talking or not, but there are definitely no commercials during that time.

[Rothman]

Back in my day, non-stop music meant non-stop music, with maybe just an announcement of the station identification between songs.

I think it still generally does. Either your station was outright lying, or you tuned in right at the end of the 40 minutes.

A station I know of that does 2 hours of commercial-free music during morning rush hour is accurate to what it says. I don't remember if there's talking or not, but there are definitely no commercials during that time.

I'm going with "outright lying" since I was in the middle of the block.

[Bobby5280]

A family member does have Sirius XM, but there's no way I'd pay for something that doesn't even have local content, when regular radio is free.

What kind of "local content" are you getting with over the air broadcast radio? Is the information anything that can't be found within a few seconds of searching on a smart phone?

A long time ago I thought services like Sirius|XM were stupid. But it is kind of nice to not have to listen to lots of irritating commercials and banal jibber-jabber from some "DJ" talking over a bunch of a song you want to hear.

Regarding using "local radio" for traffic updates: that really depends the radio location and if the "DJ" personality is actually working live. These days most of these people are pre-programming their shows. What goes out over the airwaves is pre-recorded canned stuff. For live traffic updates anyone is going to be better off using the traffic layer in Google Maps.