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FM radio love and hate relationship

leesonic

leesonic

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Working from home yesterday, I put on the radio. It was a local South Jersey/Philly station, billed as "alternative", 104.5 Mhz.

The love part of it was, at first, it was nice to hear some music that I wouldn't usually listen to. And even the commercials didn't seem too annoying. When I picked my daughter up and we got home, she left it on while she was doing her homework, and then later on when she was playing her video game. A couple of times, I could hear her singing along with the songs (I was next door soldering). That's the love part.

The hate part is, even on this "alternative" station, we kept hearing the same songs over and over. I think I heard this song "dopamine" at least twice, although a Google search says you are supposed to text the station whether you like it or not. But there were other songs that I heard repeated. How easy is it to keep a list of songs played, so that the same song doesn't get played more than once a day? I remember listening to another local station, and they seemed to have "In the air tonight", "Don't stop believing", and "Sweet child of mine" played over and over during the day. If Van Gogh had been alive today, he would have cut his other ear off.
 
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I'm with you. Listen to the radio in the morning, and sometimes in the afternoon. Yes, there are a few songs that just overplayed. It's like they have 20 songs, that just get played over every 90 min, with a few others thrown in.

Here in WA, Nirvana gets overplayed, as does Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers. On the rock station, it's about the same, but with Guns & Roses, Poison added. It's hard to listen for more then a couple hours at a time. My morning session is a show, I do like that, but they will play GNR at least twice.
On Sunday morning, that is my favorite listening time!!! Both stations get retro, play a lot of good music, that I know all the words to, but have almost forgot about them. It's magical!
 
The rock and classic rock stations here are owned by the same company and have the same program director. The same band is frequently on both at the same time, so its just a matter of which song do you prefer.
 
For me the love are the classical, indie, and jazz stations here. A good antenna is required since they broadcast at lower powers. I also enjoy receiving stations from far away, testing the limits of the receiver. Getting something from Wyoming or way south in Pueblo (I'm in the middle) is still a thrill for me.

The hate are the noisy 100,000 watt stations here with HD hash and obnoxious hyperactive DJs. I swear they need to be medicated. All owned by the same company as @gadget73 says. I like Toto 'Africa' as much as anyone else... but playing it 2x daily on 3 different iHeart stations in Denver?? Really?
 
Here in the Hi Desert we only have a couple radio stations. I can’t stand the “Classic Rock” station. Imagine Casey Kasem introducing Led Zeppelin..

Thaaaat was Leeeed Zeppelin with their classic Staaaairway to Heaven, allll righty then…

Shut up jerk.
 
That 104.5 Alternative Philly station is owned by iHeart radio. Everything they touch turns to predictable and repetitive crap. You can look at any playlist from any iHeart station and see that they are all centrally programmed by a corporate stooge far away from the station that loves beating dead horses. The songs they choose are based on what the music execs tell them to play so the conglomerates get paid. It all benefits the conglomerates, the odds of an artist on an independent label getting played on an iHeart station is extraordinary.

There are very few independent stations with local DJs that can play what they want since the 1996 decision to allow the monopolization of radio stations. Currently only 3 independent station here in a Denver metro with 3 million people. That is only 1 independent station playing what they want per 1 million people.

Every time an independent station starts gaining listeners here in Denver they are gobbled up by the 2 corporations that own vast majority of all the stations in America then it turns to crap. Last time I checked iHeart owned 14 stations in Denver.
 
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I get the love/hate but FM is less repetitive than SiriusXM :whip:
Locally many of the radio stations were bought out by religious organizations, especially the “college” stations.
 
Can't stand iHeart radio. Listen for 4 hours and you've heard the whole lineup. At least 5 of them here in the Phoenix area all rotating the same play list. It's not even particularly good sound quality either, just a ton of watts. Plenty of other good stations around here, you just need a good tuner that will lock on to the weaker station without letting the powerful one next to it bleed over. And as mentioned previous, I agree, SiriusXM is probably worse. I rent a lot of cars around the country and listen to XM when traveling for work.
 
I still enjoy listening to the radio, but if you listen long enough you will hear most of the programing list within a couple of days.
 
I listen to a local university Jazz program in the morning when I am working from home. Then a local public radio Jazz program at night. Then there also is a local classical radio station with a couple of Standards and Jazz shows later in Friday and Saturday. These stations rarely replay the same song, the volunteer DJ's seem to have a lot of control over what they play and they are knowledgeable. I have not been listening to Jazz for that long so everything is new to me, which is great. I agree with everything said above; can't stand listening to commercial FM anymore, too repetitive, the DJ's are idiots who spend more time talking than playing music.
 
We do have some locals but there is something wrong with the antenna cable at work, and i just barely get the strongest commercial stations. The local ones have a lot more variety but its a handful of college stations, and this one oldies / talk station. When they play music its largely 50s-60s stuff which I like, but when its talk its basically pure insanity on the air. Think your most insane "old man yells at clouds" family members running a call-in show for all of their crazy friends. I occasionally tune in for a few minutes on the weekends and if I can handle it for more than 5 minutes they are having a pretty sane day.
 
gadget73 said:
Think your most insane "old man yells at clouds" family members running a call-in show for all of their crazy friends.
Click to expand...

That sounds like Howard Stern now. And I used to be a die-hard Stern fan. I don't think I have listened to him for three or four years now, maybe longer?
 
Atlanta radio is garbage. There are much better alternatives including Pandora and iTunes. I don't even have radios in my cars anymore.
 
Personally, not much of an "FiM" (forget it man) fan.

As already shared by some, the constant "loop" of redundant tunes gets to me. Plus, the advertising and some modern styles of vocals that are either screaming or talking rubs me the wrong way, eh? More so if the radio's on, I'll note the weather forecasts/road conditions.

In the AM, have gone more with the AM waves, picking up the occasional interviewer who has some "expert/specialist/politician-type who makes sense, and isn't a "blowhard"...but they's far and few between!:rolleyes: And, there's a Boomer/Zoomer station I'll grab if too, if I'm too lazy to... run my own material.

Negative today. I guess? Must be the darn weather!

Q
 
I pine for the old days of FM radio. Hearing new things played by people that had eclectic tastes or heard something great and passed it along. Being just NW of Boston the old WBCN comes to mind first.

BCN is long gone and the basic FM stations around here are crap. I listen mostly to talk or sports radio in the car. The political talk stations are ridiculous. I've always liked hearing someone talk to me but not crazy being told what to think.

The saving grace in these parts, at least for me, are the college stations. I might not like everything and seldom do but it's nice to have the choice.

Lowell MA has a large Cambodian population so the local U-Mass Lowell station broadcasts a great deal of Cambodian music programmed by students. I'll admit Im not a huge fan of the tunes but something about the language itself is extremely pleasant to listen to. I have NO idea what they're saying but it's almost musical to hear.
 
Occasionally, I will turn on FM with hope but I can only take it for so long.

iHeart radio with commercial after commercial.

Public broadcasting station here is depressing news all day.

It used to be so pleasurable and simple for background music. Flip on the receiver and there you go.
 
You think you have it bad in the US? The US only allows 8 minutes of commercials per hour but Canada allows 12 minutes per hour. I can guarantee hearing "White Wedding", "Satisfaction" and "Jump" at least once per week because that is what the record labels tell them to play.

I don't know why, in this day and age of streaming, that record execs have the right to declare what cut on an album is going to be the single because this is a relic of the age of vinyl. Now, replication of music is done cheaply by downloading it. There is no excuse that "we have limited capital equipment, so we have to decide where to allocate it" because this equipment is simply a server feeding music files.

I have two suggestions:

!. Forced diversifications. No conglomerate like iHeart Radio should be able to own more than one station per listening area. We have one here and it's no worse than the rest of them but we don't need two.

2. New licensing category. There should be a halt to issuing new licences to hit parade stations and these should be replaced by new music stations. This would be bands before they get signed to a label. There is a diabolical part to this: they can play music after the band has been signed but only if they had played them beforehand. This should stop radio stations from kowtowing to executives and labels.

One of the things that made the rule of the hit parade obviously bad was the seasons of Rockstar INXS and Rockstar Supernova that featured musicians who had no airplay before. The music was a lot better than most of the retreads on radio and people were introduced to the idea that their choices were being limited unnecessarily.

I have one friend who was offered a contract from a record label and she was excited until she read the terms:

1. Only she would be hired and not her band.
2. She would have to make public appearances dressed and coiffed according to the label's wishes.
3. She would only make one dollar for each CD sold.
4. The label would assume ownership of all of her music, past, present and future.

She declined and got a distribution contract with CD manufacturer. She was never going to get the hype given to Billie Eilish last year or Chappel Roan this year, so there would be a net loss in money and her extensive back catalog would be taken away from her.

The music industry needs a hard reset.
 
The confusing thing is that apparently iHeart has a lot of listeners.

Their ads sure don’t target younger people.
 
Sometimes, I wish I could present my own radio show. I could make a whole hours worth of music just based on UK/European funk and soul. Since I'm from the UK, I probably have stuff that might not have been heard over here. Heck, even some Average White Band "deep tracks", only the die-hard fans would have heard.

But then, no radio station is going to want to play it. Because if someone turns the dial and hears something they don't recognize, they are just as likely to keep turning the dial.
 
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