Anyone still listen to radio?

I still do. I listen to music, news, and baseball. Thing is, this clearchannel/iheart radio near monopoly kinda bugs me.

http://www.iheart.com/find/country/US/state/NY/city/Binghamton-154/

I think I count 8 local broadcast stations all controlled by the same organization. The one that stings is KGB, it was built in the late 80's by local guys as an independent station to answer the (different Conn. based group of) hacks who had turned WAAL into a classic rock station. After KGB was bought out by clearchannel, it ran for a few years very much as it had run before. Now we are beginning to see the corp assert its control. Packaged programming with Rover's misogyny in the morning and canned nights leaves very little local feel. Does it matter? My sense is that it does. During the run up to the Iraq disaster I was listening to a lot of FOX sports programming which spent a remarkable amount of time pimping the war. It mattered then, it matters now.

i listen to BBC Radio4 mainly. A nice mix of news, current affairs, entertainment, documentaries, drama, sit-coms, sketch shows, science shows, panel shows, phone ins etc.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4

Check out the range of progs here :) Some of them maybe accessible but I suspect most are only accessible from the uk

I listen to BBC on occasion. Pretty good programming, but hardly local. :)

I was just reading the wiki page on clearchannel, turns out they were gutted by Bain capital which would explain the canned programming on their 850 radio stations. We do have a new alt rock station started by some of the old KGB guys, I believe, pretty good format although a bit heavy on the hipster music but ya gotta pay your bills.

I listen to NPR in the morning getting ready for work. It has a blend of local and national. And if I'm shuttling kids around town in the car, I'll listen to the radio for the 10 minute trip. I'll just punch the channel buttons until I find an ok song. I don't even know what the stations are. If there is nothing good on any of the 6 buttons, then I listen to whatever CD my wife has left in the player.

I don't like the radio monopoly. I was shocked when the local alternative station got bought by Clearchannel or whoever and switched to Spanish a decade or so ago. They completely abandoned their entire audience overnight. It was really shocking.

I listen to NPR and 2 sports talk stations, mainly. Less often I listen to an alternative music station, and if I'm up late Sat. night I listen to Star's End on U of Penn's station.

During the run up to the Iraq disaster I was listening to a lot of FOX sports programming which spent a remarkable amount of time pimping the war.

I assure you this is just confirmation bias. Fox Broadcasting and Fox News Corporation are on separate arms of the corporate structure diagram, and shared much less DNA in 2003 than they do now, which still isn't that much.

The Internet has overwhelmed traditional broadcasting in recent years. You can get almost anything from it, including audio. Almost all the NPR shows are available from it and you can listen on demand, and pause, and shit like that.

Start here if you are willing to install iTunes:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/

I listen to BBC Radio 5 every day.
I'm not great at retuning my radio (:eyebrow: says Dani), so although it's not my bag in the evenings when it becomes a sports station, I appreciate it in the mornings. It has a general interest Breakfast Show and My Call which is a call-in about topics in the news from 09.00-11.00 for my days off.

Luckily I don't have to put up with Wake Up To Money any more, as my shifts at this store start later.

I listen to radio far more than I watch television. Well, obviously as I don't have a tv at present. But this was the same when I lived in Aylesbury. I don't really miss the tv, although I will be watching Harry Enfield's programme about BBC2 when I get online at home (BBC i-Player).

Undertoad;899557 wrote:

I assure you this is just confirmation bias. Fox Broadcasting and Fox News Corporation are on separate arms of the corporate structure diagram, and shared much less DNA in 2003 than they do now, which still isn't that much.

Ha ha! I must have missed the anti-fracking rants that would have gone against the corporate ownerships political agenda and would also have bothered me. Individual radio hosts having achieved national status are not about to start biting the hand. Conversely, they may well double-down on beliefs they have that align with Murdoch culture.

Undertoad;899558 wrote:

The Internet has overwhelmed traditional broadcasting in recent years. You can get almost anything from it, including audio. Almost all the NPR shows are available from it and you can listen on demand, and pause, and shit like that.

Start here if you are willing to install iTunes:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/

Strangely unavailable in real time in my car.

Murdoch wasn't owner until 2005. And wait are you sure you were talking about Fox sports?

Strangely unavailable in real time in my car.

I suppose you'll have to go satellite radio, it's not real time but only a four-second delay.

I can't say for sure which shows they were at the time, could be a flawed memory. At the time it seemed rather brazen to whore out a war when supposedly talking about ball games.

I guess, I'm having trouble breaking free of the free locally produced radio paradigm and as far as I know paid satellite is not local radio. I mostly listen to Pandora/local radio at home and radio/cd on the road. Operations like Pandora and Spotify would seem to have increased choice while unified corporate control has reduced choice.

In the car, I listen to either NPR or my rotation of CDs. I used to listen to a talk station, but it got turned into sports.

Much prefer the radio to TV.

I listen to BBC Radio 4 (speech based) when it starts up at 0530 and if other things didn't get in the way, I'd listen to it all day, Woman's Hour excepted. :)
During my insomniac hours it transmits the BBC World Service which provides a wide range of programming.

If nothing appeals there, it's over to BBC Five Live which transmits the appropriately named 'Up All Night'. Rhod Sharp, who runs the programme several nights a week actually does it from his home in Marblehead, Massachusetts. I suppose that if you are going to speak to the UK between 0100 and 0500 then the East coast of the US is the place to do it from.

The BBC, live from Marblehead.

Occasionally listen to NPR/WBUR and 6PR (Perth, W. Oz) online.

I draw the line at the 'pop and prattle' commercial stations. Yes, it's my age...

I drew the line at pop and prattle stations in my 20s :p

Carruthers;899567 wrote:

Much prefer the radio to TV.

Definitely. I'm just not a big tv guy.

Griff;899540 wrote:

I still do. I listen to music, news, and baseball. Thing is, this clearchannel/iheart radio near monopoly kinda bugs me.

I read in the paper last week Clear Channel snapped up four more radio stations on Cape Cod, in trade for a radio station and a TV station on Long Island.
I was thinking Jesus, Cape Cod is only a little over 300 square miles with a max elevation of a nosebleed 300 ft. Why four (more) radio stations? They must be tailoring the advertising by neighborhood.
But if they're all playing the same thing, why would anybody change stations to get targeted with ads only 20 miles closer to where they are listening from. Who changes stations looking for ads?



Sherman, set the wayback machine for 1958. A Radio station in northern CT starts up with a rockin' 1000 watts, I think it was. They played stuff you wouldn't hear on the established stations where Mom was listening to Arthur Godfrey's ukulele. No, this station had a dead aim on, Tah Dah[SIZE="1"](French horns)[/SIZE], the "Youth Market". But the best thing was they were too small for a program director, only had four DJs to cover 24/7, and one of them lived right down the street from me.

If I could catch him awake he'd talk music till the cows came home, spinning wonderful tales of magical bands in exotic locations like Philly, Memphis, Chicago, Detroit. Musicians that came in different colors, spoke with different accents, and even different languages. Once in a while he'd even invite me to hang out at the station during his shift.

Um, sorry:blush:... Sherman, back to reality.

I listen to WIP/YSP sports radio on my 8 minute commute. Occasionally if they are in a long commercial, I'll listen to KYW news radio.... give us 20 minutes, we'll give you the world...

when I do my long ride up to see the kids 1.5 times per week, I listen to spotify or an audio book through my JBL Flip blue tooth speaker. It's badass.

it fits perfectly in one of my cupholders, has bluetooth phone and sounds pert durn gud too.

Griff wrote:

Does anyone listen to radio?

Well, yeah.

Mostly KUOW, the local NPR station. Also listener supported KEXP, KPLU (Pacific Lutheran University), KBCS (Bellevue Community college). KJR for rock and roll, KIRO for local commercial talk, KTTH (The Truth) when I need to catch up on my Michael Medved and Rush Limbaugh etc.

Switch back and forth between music and conservative talk radio. I have a 12 minute commute. I don't listen much.

I've essentially given up on radio and tv. Listen and watch very little.

WHLA - FM 90.3 Wisconsin Public Radio. Yeah!!! I spelled it rite.

fargon;899684 wrote:

WHLA - FM 90.3

La Crosse. Back during WWII, Gato class submarines (our largest) were constructed in WI. Then sailed down the Mississippi River to be deployed to the Pacific. Were they built in La Crosse?

Manitowoc, I've been to their great museum.

xoxoxoBruce;899700 wrote:

Manitowoc, I've been to their great museum.

How did they get submarines from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River?

yes. Mostly in the car. Even after 13 years here, the commercials drive me nuts, though, so channels get flipped a lot. Current rock (me) and pop (kids and me by default) and oldies when really desperate. or a CD when really really desperate. Just bought a couple recently that are currently making that a more common option (Fall Out Boy and Bastille, for those who care)

There's one local pop station that I have on two radios I listen to doing housework in the morning. it's the standard guy/girls twosome, (Blaine and Allison). he's a dumb dick, but she's super-smart and funny (he takes all the credit) and I'm just waiting for Detroit to wise up and at least credit her first, if not dump him altogether.

Sorry guys, [aside rant] but America is so backwards and formulaeic when it comes to radio and so fucking sexist it's untrue. I was horrified about the sexist attitude here when I first moved here and not much has changed.

monster wrote:

(Fall Out Boy and Bastille, for those who care)

Oh yes, Bastille has been in heavy rotation in my car for a few weeks now, the kids love it. If you like them you should also check out Capital Cities.

I hardly do radio at all anymore. The kids hate it because it's not predictable; they want to know what song is coming next at all times. There's a morning show that I really like that I could listen to after I drop them off at school, except apparently 7:45 is the time they go into commercial break like clockwork, and it lasts all the way until I get home. All the other stations are playing ads at the same time too. So screw them. I have plenty of CDs to keep me happy.

yeh we like them too. old news, though ;)

I sometimes listen to NPR and when I jog, I listen to 96.5 FM. Weird but I like the prattle more than the music when I jog because the show is funny. The songs are the same day in and day out so they get kinda boring.

tw;899750 wrote:

How did they get submarines from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River?

After doing 300 ft dives in the lake, they cut the tops off and barged them from Chicago through several rivers/canals to the Mississippi, then down to New Orleans where they were welded back together.

On road trips, I also listen XM radio. If it's just me, I'll listen to First Wave, Deep Cuts, Classic Vinyl, Classic Rewind. If the family is there, we compromise with The Bridge or Coffee Shop.

This weekend I had on 104.5 alternative while I did way too much yard work.

Of course I forget that in other countries radio means adverts.
I don't listen to music on the radio, and don't have to hear adverts either.
I forget how foreign I am sometimes.

Portland has a great jazz station.
Most days I have it on all day.

Carruthers, I often hear BBC programming, World News for example, when I listen to my local station KUOW late at night. There are a couple of voices I especially like hearing. Neil Nunes has a beautiful voice, and the way Louisa Lim sounds, I imagine she's just eaten a cherry cordial and is striving to read the news without swallowing or spilling a drop. I find that particular speech pattern distinctly English. (said the American)

Seems the Brits have as many different accents on that little island as we do in this huge country. Most are pleasant but I've heard a few that I found unintelligible. Of course I've found some Americans unintelligible too. :haha:

This is really neat. It is just general highlights, for instance it gives one yorkshire accent and one lancashire accent, but in reality there are many variations of each regional accent (I can absolutely tell the difference between the Bolton accent and the Burnley accent and they are just two towns in Lancashire) but it's cleverly done.
[YOUTUBE]-8mzWkuOxz8[/YOUTUBE]

BigV;900614 wrote:

Carruthers, I often hear BBC programming, World News for example, when I listen to my local station KUOW late at night. There are a couple of voices I especially like hearing. Neil Nunes has a beautiful voice, and the way Louisa Lim sounds, I imagine she's just eaten a cherry cordial and is striving to read the news without swallowing or spilling a drop. I find that particular speech pattern distinctly English. (said the American)

Pleased to hear that you find BBC programming to your liking. It surprised me how many Public Radio stations carry BBC output and my trips to the US were accompanied by familiar voices coming from the car radio.

...and as Bruce says:

Seems the Brits have as many different accents on that little island as we do in this huge country. Most are pleasant but I've heard a few that I found unintelligible.

Dani's video neatly illustrates the wide variety of accents in the UK. Some are pretty much unintelligible and others do not fall lightly on the ear. I think I'd better stop there!

Just to end, here's a sample of BBC English at its best (other opinions are available).

[YOUTUBE]4nnjGjGuRjo[/YOUTUBE]