How long do you think local radio will survive?

Cradles Broken GlassCradles Broken Glass Posts: 1,409
edited September 2010 in All Encompassing Trip
This is something I wonder often, how long will it be before the radio is a thing of the past? Between XM, Sirius, iPods with Podcast (go All that's Sacred!) and you personalized taste in music, how long will the public radios stations be able to hang in there? The closest thing we have to a decent station in my area (which still sucks) has a commercial that promotes listening to local radio. I just don't see the point. Why would I want to listen to something that what music it plays is dictated by the record industry rather than the listeners?
Hearts and thoughts they fade....
fade away...

I am at peace with my lust.....for Eddie.
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Comments

  • Our beloved 104.1 WBCN here in Boston was given the ol' heave-ho last year. We're all still kinda reeling from that.
    "FF, I've heard the droning about the Sawx being the baby dolls. Yeah, I get it, you guys invented baseball and suffered forever. I get it." -JearlPam0925
  • 8181 Posts: 58,276
    its still nice to listen to radio, as long as they are playing new stuff.
    81 is now off the air

    Off_Air.jpg
  • PoncierPoncier Posts: 16,709
    Our beloved 104.1 WBCN here in Boston was given the ol' heave-ho last year. We're all still kinda reeling from that.
    I still have it as a preset on the car stereo, every so often I hit it out of habit then go "aww shit" and change to HJY in Providence or something.
    This weekend we rock Portland
  • Gary CarterGary Carter Posts: 14,067
    forever
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    Sammi: Wanna just break up?

  • 81 wrote:
    its still nice to listen to radio, as long as they are playing new stuff.


    Sadly, the radio station I was referring to as the decent one, doesn't realize Pearl Jam has recorded anything since Ten. :?
    Hearts and thoughts they fade....
    fade away...

    I am at peace with my lust.....for Eddie.
  • The JugglerThe Juggler Posts: 48,613
    to give you an idea of how lazy i am...my sirius broke last year and i keep putting off getting it fixed.....and keep forgetting to cancel or put my membership on hold. so i have been paying $13 a month for nothing for the longest time. i'm an idiot.

    but it means i've been forced to listent the radio a little bit. it is horrendous other than xpn here in philly. 104.5 is the only other one that isn't quite garbage. that said--it will last for a long time because not everyone wants to pay for satellite.

    with that said.....i don't see why anyone in their right mind would spend money on an hd radio. i mean you just get all the same shitty stations....clearer. who wants that? who are these people buying these things??
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  • 8181 Posts: 58,276
    81 wrote:
    its still nice to listen to radio, as long as they are playing new stuff.


    Sadly, the radio station I was referring to as the decent one, doesn't realize Pearl Jam has recorded anything since Ten. :?


    just heard Amongst The Waves about an hour ago :mrgreen:
    81 is now off the air

    Off_Air.jpg
  • The JugglerThe Juggler Posts: 48,613
    81 wrote:
    81 wrote:
    its still nice to listen to radio, as long as they are playing new stuff.


    Sadly, the radio station I was referring to as the decent one, doesn't realize Pearl Jam has recorded anything since Ten. :?


    just heard Amongst The Waves about an hour ago :mrgreen:

    the garbage you have to put up with between those rare gems are not worth it though.
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  • I'm a huge local radio station fan (WMMR in Philly ROCKS)

    I'll never stop listening
  • Gary CarterGary Carter Posts: 14,067
    81 wrote:
    81 wrote:
    its still nice to listen to radio, as long as they are playing new stuff.


    Sadly, the radio station I was referring to as the decent one, doesn't realize Pearl Jam has recorded anything since Ten. :?


    just heard Amongst The Waves about an hour ago :mrgreen:
    i've heard some really rare pj songs on my local radio station. i like the radio station alot. they play a good mix of non top 40 rock that's out there today. i also listen to sports talk radio.
    Ron: I just don't feel like going out tonight
    Sammi: Wanna just break up?

  • RKCNDYRKCNDY Posts: 31,013
    This is something I wonder often, how long will it be before the radio is a thing of the past? Between XM, Sirius, iPods with Podcast (go All that's Sacred!) and you personalized taste in music, how long will the public radios stations be able to hang in there? The closest thing we have to a decent station in my area (which still sucks) has a commercial that promotes listening to local radio. I just don't see the point. Why would I want to listen to something that what music it plays is dictated by the record industry rather than the listeners?

    Really? The record industry? I find that hard to believe. There are 2 'rock' stations in the Seattle area, and Funky Monkey plays WAY better music than KISW will play during the day. Even in Portland, KUFO plays better music than KISW. I have participated in their music polls to try to get them to play more new music.
    IF radio were to 'go away'
    Who will give away free concert tix? (Every PJ concert I've been to were tix won from the radio station, or a 10c pal) Who's gonna promote big name concerts when they come to town? When a big storm brings down cable and dish programming, who am I gonna listen to?
    Not everybody wants to pay subscription fees for everything.
    Just sayin'
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  • The JugglerThe Juggler Posts: 48,613
    I'm a huge local radio station fan (WMMR in Philly ROCKS)

    I'll never stop listening

    really? preston and steve are funny sometimes...i can't stand all the ac/dc stuff though. do you listen to xpn?
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  • know1know1 Posts: 6,794
    I think it will last longer than newspapers for sure. It's essentially free and there should be a longterm market for that.

    What I don't really understand why people bother paying for satellite radio when they could listen to their entire music collection or download podcasts or Pandora or Slacker or iheartradio, etc. It seems kind of dumb, really.
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  • Not sure...

    It just seems like radio sucks balls anymore... I'll hit scan until I find a decent song, and there are times when minutes have passed, and I realize it's still scanning because I haven't found anything to stop it on. So many commercials and repeat songs.

    I listen to a local station on the way to work, but it's playing a national ESPN radio show, and on the way home I usually play pandora on my phone or whatever.

    Drive times are the worst... they try to put all of the "popular" songs on during those couple hours, so every day sounds the same... Evening radio seems to be a bit better.

    Besides in a car, I rarely listen to the radio... at home, it's either, itunes, pandora or even the digital cable music channels...
    My whole life
    was like a picture
    of a sunny day
    “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
    ― Abraham Lincoln
  • 4and20 wrote:
    This is something I wonder often, how long will it be before the radio is a thing of the past? Between XM, Sirius, iPods with Podcast (go All that's Sacred!) and you personalized taste in music, how long will the public radios stations be able to hang in there? The closest thing we have to a decent station in my area (which still sucks) has a commercial that promotes listening to local radio. I just don't see the point. Why would I want to listen to something that what music it plays is dictated by the record industry rather than the listeners?

    Really? The record industry? I find that hard to believe. There are 2 'rock' stations in the Seattle area, and Funky Monkey plays WAY better music than KISW will play during the day. Even in Portland, KUFO plays better music than KISW. I have participated in their music polls to try to get them to play more new music.
    IF radio were to 'go away'
    Who will give away free concert tix? (Every PJ concert I've been to were tix won from the radio station, or a 10c pal) Who's gonna promote big name concerts when they come to town? When a big storm brings down cable and dish programming, who am I gonna listen to?
    Not everybody wants to pay subscription fees for everything.
    Just sayin'

    It might have to do with the area you're in, here in the Memphis area, I don't think anyone even announced the Ed solo tour and free tickets, you can forget about it. Occasionally there might be a giveaway to some show by an 80's has been that's playing at a casino. We don't have a station that has a good variety, it's what's popular at the time with some really old classic rock town in occasionally. I did think about the weather issue, I think eventually it will dwindle down to mostly talk radio stations, such as NPR,which is what I listen to if I'm not listening to a cd.

    **I also agree that newspapers are quickly on their way out too. I have a degree in journalism, so I'm from a college of communications, and I just feel like it is all a dying breed.
    Hearts and thoughts they fade....
    fade away...

    I am at peace with my lust.....for Eddie.
  • I would guess it all depends on how much commercial time the radio station can sell. And if the time sold is profitable enough for the station to continue.
  • local - it's all in the word. local radio is supported by advertising from local business. if you listen to local radio, in some small way, you are supporting your community. my hokey little town has an NPR station, some sattellite driven pop 'run your voice thru that electric thingy' station, two stations that try hard to play everything, and a country station that does an unintentionally hilarious morning talk gig, mispronouncing movies, celebrity names - they have announcements and guests and such - and they even had me play ukulele one morning! all the stations do am trivia - there was one guy who called himself "wakeandbake" who answered "angela landsberry" everytime, regardless of the question. i'm sure there are people who think all the stations suck, and there are times they all do, and there had been moments i've yelled at the dj on the radio "you cannot play fucking nickelback after nothingman! are you insane?" but that is what kindof makes it funny. who knows how long it will last, but for the time being i'm sure glad it's there.
    uke can save the world
  • 4and20 wrote:
    IF radio were to 'go away'
    Who will give away free concert tix? (Every PJ concert I've been to were tix won from the radio station, or a 10c pal) Who's gonna promote big name concerts when they come to town? When a big storm brings down cable and dish programming, who am I gonna listen to?
    Not everybody wants to pay subscription fees for everything.
    Just sayin'

    Emergencies and the like are probably the only reason local radio will stay on forever..

    As far as concert promotion, that ship is slowly sailing... I work in an arena, and more and more concert announcements/giveaways are done on things like Facebook, online ads, e-mail campaigns, cable tv, etc... sure, radio stations are still used, but internet/cable tv is where a big focus of advertising is.
    My whole life
    was like a picture
    of a sunny day
    “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
    ― Abraham Lincoln
  • LloydXmasLloydXmas Posts: 7,539
    FM was supposed to be the AM KIller right? I think local radio will definitely be around forever
  • dcfaithfuldcfaithful Posts: 13,076
    Commercial radio will live on forever, I believe. I don't listen to it though, it's quite dull in my opinion and just like television, is littered with an insane amount of commercials.

    However, I think the important thing is to keep things such as community radio going, and they won't without listener support and contribution. Our local community station here in SLC is KRCL 90.9 FM: http://www.krcl.org

    Albeit the majority of tunes played is generally bleak, hipster indie music, I still give it my support as it has no boundaries as to genres and artists it plays and I regularly discover talented and creative musicians from their airwaves. On this station, depending on the time you'll hear blues, country, bluegrass, world music, rock/alt/indie, vintage rock, Native American music, folk and Americana, ambient, ethnic, reggae, soul/R&B and underground hip hop and everything in between. Not to mention the wonderful talk shows on the station such as Radioactive and Democracy Now!
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  • pjhawkspjhawks Posts: 12,440
    I'm a huge local radio station fan (WMMR in Philly ROCKS)

    I'll never stop listening

    really? preston and steve are funny sometimes...i can't stand all the ac/dc stuff though. do you listen to xpn?


    We are really lucky in philly as we actually have choices on radio. For rock WMMR is still king but YSP has gotten much better as they have toned down the 80s hair bands/heavy metal and gone with a lot more 90s music. 104.5 and 95.7 are listenable in small doses or when you want something different than regular hard rock.

    Jaegs - XPN is pretty hit or miss for me. sometimes i put it on and seems good but other times to me it's pretty blah. it's definitely different but i think more of an acquired taste.

    but like a couple of people said i mostly listen in my car these days. at home if im sitting on the deck or something i most likely flip on the Ipod.

    i think it will be around pretty much forever, just not as popular. never had satellite radio but to me local radio is still better if only for the home town flavor. sometimes its cool to hear what is going on in your area, promoting events, etc.

    newspapers will be gone by 2015 - too expensive for print when you can just put everything online.
  • I'm a huge local radio station fan (WMMR in Philly ROCKS)

    I'll never stop listening

    really? preston and steve are funny sometimes...i can't stand all the ac/dc stuff though. do you listen to xpn?

    Is that 104.5? Occassionally.

    I'm not an AC/DC fan either, but I can stomach it. I've been listening for years and I'm a loyal person, sometimes to a fault :lol:
  • The JugglerThe Juggler Posts: 48,613
    pjhawks wrote:
    I'm a huge local radio station fan (WMMR in Philly ROCKS)

    I'll never stop listening

    really? preston and steve are funny sometimes...i can't stand all the ac/dc stuff though. do you listen to xpn?


    We are really lucky in philly as we actually have choices on radio. For rock WMMR is still king but YSP has gotten much better as they have toned down the 80s hair bands/heavy metal and gone with a lot more 90s music. 104.5 and 95.7 are listenable in small doses or when you want something different than regular hard rock.

    Jaegs - XPN is pretty hit or miss for me. sometimes i put it on and seems good but other times to me it's pretty blah. it's definitely different but i think more of an acquired taste.

    but like a couple of people said i mostly listen in my car these days. at home if im sitting on the deck or something i most likely flip on the Ipod.

    i think it will be around pretty much forever, just not as popular. never had satellite radio but to me local radio is still better if only for the home town flavor. sometimes its cool to hear what is going on in your area, promoting events, etc.

    newspapers will be gone by 2015 - too expensive for print when you can just put everything online.

    i hear you about the local flavor and that's why i held out on satelite for as long as i did. but to me, most of it is unlistenable including the stations you mentioned. mmr--still plays pj which is cool. but i can't stand the other stuff in between. damn this thread is really making me get my ass to best buy to fix my sirius now :mrgreen:

    xpn is really the only place to hear new and eclectic music in philly. i mean Brad is playing their world cafe next month. where else in philly would year hear that?!
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  • The JugglerThe Juggler Posts: 48,613
    I'm a huge local radio station fan (WMMR in Philly ROCKS)

    I'll never stop listening

    really? preston and steve are funny sometimes...i can't stand all the ac/dc stuff though. do you listen to xpn?

    Is that 104.5? Occassionally.

    I'm not an AC/DC fan either, but I can stomach it. I've been listening for years and I'm a loyal person, sometimes to a fault :lol:

    no 104.5 is kind of like the old y100 but not as good. mainstreem new rock/alternative stuff.

    xpn is the univ of penn station 88.5. if you like an eclectic mix, check it out.

    remember DRE? now that was a station...
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  • pjhawkspjhawks Posts: 12,440
    no 104.5 is kind of like the old y100 but not as good. mainstreem new rock/alternative stuff.

    xpn is the univ of penn station 88.5. if you like an eclectic mix, check it out.

    remember DRE? now that was a station...

    DRE was awesome but I think that is just because it was the right place right time in the early 90s. it just rode that wave for a few years.

    Jaegs were you a local bar band guy? Remember Strange As Angels? they were awesome in the early 90s. Used to check them out on a regular basis for like a year or two.
  • The JugglerThe Juggler Posts: 48,613
    pjhawks wrote:
    no 104.5 is kind of like the old y100 but not as good. mainstreem new rock/alternative stuff.

    xpn is the univ of penn station 88.5. if you like an eclectic mix, check it out.

    remember DRE? now that was a station...

    DRE was awesome but I think that is just because it was the right place right time in the early 90s. it just rode that wave for a few years.

    Jaegs were you a local bar band guy? Remember Strange As Angels? they were awesome in the early 90s. Used to check them out on a regular basis for like a year or two.

    right place/right time--whatever it was, that station was legendary. opened with Alive...went out with Alive. there's youtube footage of the party they had when they played Alive for the last time. pretty cool. i think y100 ended with Alive too because so many of their workers were former DRE guys.

    don't remember strange as angels. aren't you a few years older than me? i was in middle school/high school early '90's
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  • tybirdtybird Posts: 17,388
    As long as the big radio corporations see a return on their investment, there will traditional terrestrial radio....most of the radio stations are now corporate owned. :cry:
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  • pjhawkspjhawks Posts: 12,440
    pjhawks wrote:
    no 104.5 is kind of like the old y100 but not as good. mainstreem new rock/alternative stuff.

    xpn is the univ of penn station 88.5. if you like an eclectic mix, check it out.

    remember DRE? now that was a station...

    DRE was awesome but I think that is just because it was the right place right time in the early 90s. it just rode that wave for a few years.

    Jaegs were you a local bar band guy? Remember Strange As Angels? they were awesome in the early 90s. Used to check them out on a regular basis for like a year or two.

    right place/right time--whatever it was, that station was legendary. opened with Alive...went out with Alive. there's youtube footage of the party they had when they played Alive for the last time. pretty cool. i think y100 ended with Alive too because so many of their workers were former DRE guys.

    don't remember strange as angels. aren't you a few years older than me? i was in middle school/high school early '90's

    yes bit older here. Strange As Angels was kind of it for that type of music before Mr. Greengenes came around. forgot about DRE and Y100 with Alive but now that you mention it does bring it back. Was cool Y100 going out with Alive. I'll have to YouTube the DRE party for it.
  • The JugglerThe Juggler Posts: 48,613
    the beginning -ALIVE--fast forward to 2:20: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ9-ELstmjk

    the end- ALIVE-- fast forward to 8:55 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHpG36XVOIg

    radio has sucked ever since then :mrgreen:
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  • __ Posts: 6,651
    Local radio is going the way of the dodo and it's already halfway gone. I support local radio and will fight for it 'til the end, but just because you're not paying for service doesn't mean you're listening to local radio. Most of the stations are owned by huge corporations and the less local the stations are, the more money goes into their pockets. Only the morning shows are live anymore; the other shows are generally pre-recorded by people who are taking on more and more jobs as their long-time colleagues are getting laid off. You know Joe who you listen to on the rock station at noon? He's also Bob, the mid-day guy from the country station. And he's not even in town; he's on vacation, pretending to be taking calls and giving things away, replying to your email from his iPhone from his best friend's wedding across the country. Or, worse, he actually lives across the country and, like a psychic, says "specific" things about local happenings that are just vague enough to be applicable to anywhere - or takes an hour every day to voice track one break specific to each market. Think you need someone local to announce breaking news and weather? Think again. They have the technology to cut in to your station from corporate headquarters and make any time-sensitive announcements - and they're installing it in a radio station near you right now. So, yes, maybe commercial radio will survive awhile longer, but it will be a handful of guys playing a handful of songs from a handful of corporate headquarters. And by the time everyone realizes it, it will be too late.
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