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I dont listen to the radio for music. I listen for sports and news
In this week's Soapbox, reader Mike Johnston partly blames radio consolidation for music business woes. As radio ownership has changed over the last five years, have you found yourself listening to it more or less?
There really are no stations locally that play anything new or different in jazz or blues. Albuquerque-Santa Fe is a small market made up of a couple of conglomerates that have their formula stuff, except for a good classical station KHFM. So, it is that or talk radio. At home, when I do get to sit down and listen I chose my blues, jazz or fusion from the 70's & 80"s. Sometimes classical on CD, LP or my old Denon tuner.
Radio in Milwaukee: Uninteresting, Uninvolving, Unimaginative. I do find patches of inspiration, but for the most part it's not the essential radio that formed and influenced my musical tastes 30 years ago. I count on my online sources to find new stuff.
I have always listened to a lot of radio. My wife says I can't go for more than ten minutes without some kind of music playing, ususally the FM radio. I listen more these days because I own a Magnum Dynalab MD-108 FM tuner. My dealer looked at me kind of funny when I purchased it. But I agree with reader Mike Johnston that radio is in serious decline in general, however there are exceptions and a good tuner/antenna combination can really do wonderful things.Also my tastes have changed some since 1970. Unlike many of my peers, my listening habits continued to evolve after leaving high school. I listen now to probably 60% classical and 40% rock
My primary choice for music is Jazz. I live in the Washington D.C. area and the choice for Jazz has been winnowed down to 1 station. Although this station delivers Jazz it also has a broad range of talk, raggae, carribean, and other venues which limits the Jazz time. Other stations have included smooth in their airings and that is like fingernails on a blackboard to my ears. However I do listen to quite a bit of PBR and Sports radio when on the internet. It tends to be just background noise. To me the airwaves were best in the early expansion of FM prior to the corporate moguls touting their products. There has been less and less music: classical, jazz, rock, etc on the airwaves. There has been a mass proliferation of formula station formats which has really limited the breadth of music offerings.
Radio playlists are so limited and predictable that they're not worth listening to anymore. And now we're supposed to listen to satellite/internet radio with a nameless/faceless DJ? If radio is going to succeed, let's hear more variety in the programming (even within particular genres, like classical, jazz, and rock) presented by a DJ with a personality (someone more interested in music than advertisers).
There are still a few bright spots to be found in the not-for-profit world but for the most part radio has sucked for years. At home and work I only listen to streaming "radio" over the internet. It's like the good old days with lots of choices and personalities. In many cases the quality is pretty good too. If it wasn't for these pioneering internet "broadcasters" I wouldn't have bought nearly as many CDs in the past few years as I have.
Nothing good on the airwaves anymore. That simply represents nothing very original or interesting musically produced by the vast majority of artists right now. That's where the real music slump lies, not in downloads and 'music stealin', but in the lack of good stuff from artists. Waiting for the next big thing........ Phil
The ownership changes in FM radio haven't affected me at all; I never listen to popular stations. Here in St. Louis there are only two or three stations with halfway interesting programming, so owning a super tuner is of little value to me. My primary interest is classical music and the classical station here has been dumbed down over the past ten years or so. The NPR station here is talk only. The result is that I'm listening to FM radio a little less these days.
The pablum that passes for music on most pop stations hardly encourages one to listen, or to buy the record or CD. Even worse, music in any form seems is being replaced by talk radio (radio's reality TV). One benefit for me is that classical music has filled the void and now fuels my listening passion.
I have just bought a DAB radio, as the analog reception where I live is terrible! Not only am I listening to more of the stations I always did, plus there's a few really good digital-only stations that have become happily lodged in my presets. I won't try to convert you Americans to the BBC's superb cricket coverage, though. Okay, the sound quality isn't up to that of FM, but in my current system and circumstances I'd rather listen to lower quality without interference than the way it was. I even used to get hiss after switching to mono, which was no fun at all. I'm planning to move house soon, and I shall invest in a proper aerial and have both tuners hooked up to my system! I do listen to speech radio more than music, but now I can access all sorts of stations without extensive swearing and fiddling with my indoor aerial, I am listening to more of everything.