On Radio in NYC area...

[savethewave]

All it needs is tumbleweeds blowing by...

I am referring to the wasteland of radio.

I stopped watching any television in 1999, because I was so disgusted; not with the sex and violence, but the overall brainless stupidity of the programming.

Anyway, I am at the point where I would rather listen to talk radio than almost any music program on the air. I really enjoyed the "Old" WHTG (106.3 FM in Neptune, NJ) from about 1985-91. Now, when I listen, it's unbearable. It's like Z-100 without the R & B: Lame-ass fake shoegazer Pearl Jam sound alikes, stupid pseudo-punk, and angry female singer-songwriters. K-Rock (WXRK, 92.3 in NYC)? Wait! Gee, are we gonna hear one of the four Red Hot Chili Peppers songs you play, yet again? Or, maybe we can hear that same Puddle Of Mudd song that we haven't already heard the umpteenth time already. Am I the only one that finds it unpleasant that if I leave the station on for four hours while I work, I will hear the same twenty songs, played again, in almost the same order? There is so much new and interesting rock, dance, and electronic music out there, I can't believe that there is not a single station in the number-one radio market on the planet that is unwilling to take a chance. What a disgrace.

Even public radio stations are tiring. Whether playing much of the same classical music that can be heard on commercial station WQXR, or listening to AAA (Adult Album Alternative) format played by ex-WNEW and WHTG rock DJ's, how much precious, terminal pseudo-hipness can a person take? This is, of course assuming they are not having a pledge drive.

There are a few shows, such as the syndicated New Wave Nation hosted by MTV alum Nina Blackwood, but it was on Sunday nights on 96.5 FM out of Philadelphia, and much of the music is what you've heard before, but at least it's a ray of hope, I guess. WLIR, 92.7 out of Long Island was okay, but Lite-FM station WOBM broadcasts out of Toms River on the same frequency.

Only WFMU, 91.1, remains consistently interesting and challenging, but its signal is weak, and an automated 50,000-watt classical station broadcasts out of Toms River area on the same frequency, so if you live south of Exit 114 on the GSP, you won't hear it.

But as for commercial music radio, It's a complete vaccuum, and I don't understand why. Even if only two percent of the population REALLY loved music and did not want the dumbed-down, lowest-common-denominator commercial radio that exists today, couldn't a station make money catering to this kind of listener? Wouldn't they be fanatically loyal, and listen for longer periods of time than a "casual" listener?

I wait and I hope...sure there is the Internet, but I can't listen in the car; as for Sirius or XM radio, it's just a CD player on random play, like on those digital cable music channels.
You can listen to your own CDs. However, it isn't the same thing as listening to a hosted radio show.

I wonder what it would take?

[phillyidol]

I agree radio sucks now. The music has gotten so bad that I will actually listen to talk radio just so I can't hear the rotton music. I have this rule that I can't listen to music I hate when I drive. I won't do it. So I burn endless cd.s and don't listen

[devildog]

Radio, what is that?

To me, radio went the same way as 8-track tapes: long gone dead.[:D]
And TV?, More crap than a NYC sewer pipe. [xx(][xx(]

[savethewave]

I just don't understand, at all, how I can live in the number one radio market in the country and have radio stink so badly. It seems to me that it is this dumbed-down, lowest-common-denominator crap that seems completely oblivious to what people actuall

[pikeprof]

Radio Consolidation is certainly A culprit-radio stations have now become "cost centers" of larger corporations and are expected to perform rather largely in terms of profits.

Many people who run radio stations don't know anything about radio or how to

[British]

Nina blackwood's new Wave Nation. Pfft. Her show was on the exact same time as my little radio show on Free Radio Twin Cities(down for the time being). She played only one shred deeper level of 80s music. It's still the same stuff you would find on new wa

[ghosty]

Well I'm always trumpeting the Modern Rock format at 89.1 WFDU fm in Teaneck, New Jersey (since I'm on it). Sure it's only one night a week (Saturdays from 6pm to 6am) but it's a lot better than the great big nothing that is NYC radio. Here's the lineup:

[buffalochipz]

First of all, I agree that commercial radio went down the crapper a long time ago. But for some reason that hasn't stopped me from continuing to collect radio station bumper stickers. I started in the mid-80s and the collection has grown to around 8,000