When did radio become irrelevant to you?

When did radio become completely irrelevant to me?

May 2013, when I got a smartphone and a Spotify subscription.

 

Sometime in the 80s or whenever the corporate "suits" and demographic "consultants" that don't know or give a crap about playing music that isn't the lowest common denominator took over the airwaves, and the element of novelty and unpredictability in the playlist disappeared forever. Today, the only thing I listen to on FM is NPR or the local college jazz station.

 

Radio still has relevance to me, but hardly anything in my area. I use my Tune In app on my phone or Kindle to listen to radio from other areas of the country or the world, since Philadelphia radio has become mostly repetitive, payola-driven, automated crap. There are only a few good things for me on Philadelphia radio, and once those shows each day are done, I'll listen to something else on my phone at work or the Kindle or phone at home.

That's as far as radio goes, but I tend to mix radio listening in with listening to Spotify, CDs, vinyl, cassettes, etc.

 

Early 80's.

 

When they started to transmit news and commercials all day long....

 

Radio is still relevant to me and I listen to it every single day. As others have mentioned I'm blessed to be within range of WBGO in Newark, NJ and WKCR in NYC. That said, with the popularity of internet radio streaming and apps, there's plenty for me to listen to. It's still a way for me to discover new music, which happens fairly regularly. That said, I do miss free form radio from the '60's - a big shout out to WHFS in Bethesda, MD!

 

About the same time new rock bands quit happening, some time around 1980.
I listened to the radio some during the 80s, and there was a lot of good pop music out them. But when stations started dividing up into absurd subcatagories radio became very bland. Parodies of rock like metal, hair bands, new wave, and punk pretty much destroyed what was previously rock radio.

 

I feel the same way, having access to all the stations in a major-market town like Chicago, but I also know there's not nearly as many "terrestrial radio" choices in less populated areas of the country.

 

Plenty of great local college radio, and streams of WFMU. Radio is still plenty relevant to me.

 

Once I got an iPod and realized that there is a ton of great music that will never get played on commercial radio. Free mp3 downloads from band/label websites and recommendations on music message boards became my new ways of discovering new music.

 

1975. I thought the mainstream was getting quite lame by then and was listening to imports of Pub rock records. From my point of view, from Pub rock came Punk rock. There was no air time for Dr. Feelgood here in eastern Washington or even for Elvis Costello a little later. Somewhere around that time disco and arena rock came along and there was nothing on the radio I wanted to hear. It was all for the best. I quit listening to the radio and looked a little harder for the good stuff.

 

Starting in the 90's I began to lose interest as the playlists became more and more restricted but what really killed it was moving from the Los Angeles area to Idaho. So few choices here.

 

This. Portland, Oregon has a great jazz station, KMHD that I listen to when NPR is boring. Otherwise I play cds in the car. I don't have satellite radio, refuse to pay for it.

 

I don't think I listened to much radio after 1982 or so.

 

Never.

 

When I knew the nuances of every song off each oldies station I grew up on, and when the stuff coming in the newer end started sounding junky to me.

 

When music became my main hobby several years ago, I found my stations of choice (old rock) drove the same 75 or so songs into the ground, and deep cuts were rare if ever.

 

1986. My Walkman protected me from commercial radio. Outside of a few great stations like radio Free Hawaii (91-93), 97X (1993-1998) in Gainesville, FL , and streaming WUIN (Wilmington, NC from 2003 – 2006), it's been my Walkman and my iPod.

 

Early to mid 80's. That's when FM radio started to smell kinda funny. These days, I mainly listen to KPFA (94.1 FM). A listener-funded progressive talk radio and music radio station located in Berkeley. It airs public news, public affairs, talk, and music programming.

 

It became frustrating clear to me in 2007 how radio had shifted from being anything meaningful to almost horrible, but still worth listening to I guess in the car when one is driving alone and needs to hear anything.

But there are still a few good things. 100.3 the Sound in LA is a good radio station that tries. I still listen to KROQ in LA still. But I find myself listening to two local college radio stations a lot more for more diversity and jazz. When at work I actually stream Minnesota Public Radio's "The Current" radio station because I hear a lot of great music on that station it's astounding how we have nothing on that level here in Southern California.

 

Probably about 1980. I've always loved radio. Transistor radio under the blanket as a kid, rock & roll radio in the 1960s and early 1970s in my car, in my bedroom, etc. But at some point, it became the same old thing, the old "underground FM radio stations" became corporate pablum playing the same stuff. There were a few bright spots into the 1990s with good DJs (Jon Dillon in Dallas doing his own "free for all" shows, etc.). My love for radio didn't completely die. I enjoyed playing with Shortwave radios, trying to hear interesting things from around the world, but that was problematic too.

But with the advent of the internet and streaming, and networked music players (like squeezeboxes), radio became reborn for me. Interesting stuff from all over. WWOZ, TSF Jazz, Radio Paradise, WDVX, KPIG, KEXP, WUMB, WFUV, WFMU, KNON, KUTX, and on and on.

 

2008.

Bombarded with commercials.

 

It hasn't. I still cash their paychecks, twice a month.

 

I still listen in the car, mostly NPR and college radio.

 

I was done by the time I was 16. Commercials, DJs and their 'personalities' and not enough music that I liked turned me off to it.

Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse got it exactly right.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=IaQCr4PIsHE