I used to listen to the radio all the time.
- In the car
- With my friends
- At the gym
- When working
- While making dinner
I never like listening to commercials, but I had no choice and they weren’t too bad. Every 15 minutes there’d be a break with two or three commercials.
Everyone had a favorite station.
I listened to classic rock on WDVE. Some friends listened to pop on B94. Old folks listened to news on KDKA. Hip hop fans liked WAMO. Sports fans and talk show fans listened to AM stations.
It was rare that I went anywhere that didn’t have a radio playing.
Then came Sony Walkmans.
Instead of carrying a crappy transistor radio or a battery sucking boom-box, this was a handheld radio (or cassette player!) with high quality headphones that fit on your belt. This made riding the bus, studying at the library and jogging a thousand times better.
Then came CDs.
We were told CDs were indestructible and offered perfect sound. One CD could hold an entire album or more! They didn’t degrade like cassettes did.
Then came MP3 players, satellite radio, streaming music and finally podcasts.
Now for free I can listen to anything I want on my cell phone. If I want to go commercial free and get extra features, my cost is $10/month – which is well worth it. On podcasts, I fast forward past the commercials.
For me, radio is dead.
Since I live in the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale metro area with a population of over 6 million people, you’d think I’d have a lot of options for radio stations.
But you’d be wrong.
I have a choice of 2 AM stations and 4 decent FM stations that broadcast in English. I have them all programmed as favorite buttons in my car.
On the rare occasions when I try to listen to the radio, I can never get past the commercials. The commercials are very loud, never relevant and repetitive.
Over 75% of the time I try the radio, all of the stations are playing commercials except for NPR (which is often running a pledge drive or sponsorship message).
It’s unbelievable. Who listen to this?
Does anyone actually believe radio commercials are still effective?
I wonder if radio commercials still generate business. I’d guess they work a little. But I doubt they are as effective as they were back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.
Like commercial TV and newspapers, I think commercial radio is a dying industry that’s struggling to hang on to its glory days and big advertising revenues from the past.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see it continue to get worse until it fades into the sunset.
That’s too bad. Once upon a time, radio introduced generations of us to music, ideas and people we’d never have been exposed to otherwise.