I do. Most stations in my region are just crappy music and dumb call-in shows, but there’s still a few stations with quality programming. FM radio is where I get my news, where I listen to press conferences, old-school audio theatre and (surprisingly) where I get new music recommendations. Hard to believe that modern streaming platforms’ algorithms can be outperformed by traditional media.
I listen to BBC Radio because it’s still excellent. BBC Radio 6 is my go-to daily station which specialises in new music and has DJs who are passionate and have a lot of freedom, but the station also follows John Peel’s A-B-C format which keeps things nice and grounded. Also, BBC Radio 3 for jazz and classical (unlike Classic FM, which only plays movie soundtracks) and BBC Radio 3 Chill which is self-explanatory.
ABC’s Triple-J deserves an honourable mention. Student radio can be good as well.
The local commercial stations are all homogeneous slurry, lowest common denominator saccharin slop where every shred of character and local identity has been eradicated. I grew up listening to Rock FM (Lancashire) and Trent FM (Nottingham), both were cheesy but authentic local pop stations that have been thoroughly Borged into ultra-branded and means tested chaff. It’s adverts, relentlessly forced-cheery sponsored segments disguises as ‘banter’, desperately insincere attempts at audience engagement, and, occasionally, heavily edited and shortened versions of the same dozen songs.
Only in the work truck… unfortunately
Internet radio, all the time. It often just streams in the background on a Yamaha internet connected speaker.
Yes, we have community radio here, and I listen & also contribute a little $ each month.
ETA: there used to be one good commercial station too, alternative rock, but they got bought out by a bigger conglomerate and now are a Spanish station, and unfortunately not a Spanish alternative station, that would be awesome but no, just a pop station, a clone of the others we already had!
Nope…I haven’t turned a radio on in at least a decade. Can’t stand all the commercials and so on. I have around 16K songs on a USB drive in my car, that’s what I listen to.
I switched from Spotify to Navidrome+local radio. When I’m in the car, it’s been 100% radio recently.
I actually like a lot of the music on my local radio stations. Yes, it’s 10 songs on a loop, but they gradually change out the 10 songs. So 6 months from now it’s slightly different 10 songs. I also get to spend more time with each song, which lets me learn the lyrics or notice different parts of the song better.
Yes, there are ads and talking, but it’s not all bad. I like the ads for local businesses, restaurants, or events. The talking gets annoying sometimes, but most of the time it’s fine or, dare I say, even enjoyable. When the ads/talking gets too much, I just change the station. There are like 4-5 stations I cycle through. If they’re all annoying, then I just turn the radio down for a minute.
I also discover new songs from the radio that later I add to Navidrome.
Overall, pretty happy not paying for Spotify and not having to use my phone.
I stream my local college radio station while I work. There’s charm in hearing the student DJs kind of stumble through everything as they play a wide assortment of music.
Every day. The morning show wakes us up, there is radio in the car, and in my hobby room, while there is neither cellular nor wifi access, the radio still works.
Where I live (The North of Scotland), there’s really only about 6 FM radio stations. I tend to stick to the BBC, and alternate between Radio 4 (mostly grown up, politics/current affairs and some plays/comedy), Radio Scotland (regional news and ‘Get it On’, a music request show with a daily theme), Radio 2 (lightweight entertainment and phone-ins aimed at a middle age demographic) and that’s pretty much it. I also listen to Radio X on my Alexa, but it’s basically a 90s indie playlist with adverts, so not sure that counts.
I drive a truck for work; the radio is absolutely a lifeline for me. Usually just local weather/traffic updates for whatever city I’m passing through, maybe the news if I stumble upon an NPR station in time for All Things Considered. I stick to my music/audiobooks all other times though.
Unless I’m passing through home. Listening to my hometown stations helps me get out of “work mode” at the end of my rotation.
I love listening to CBC (the Canadian NPR). It makes me feel more connected to my community, keeping up to date with local news I would not otherwise have known.
Also university and coop radio stations are great for discovering new music.
I have found almost all radio status near me play a mix of 12 songs and ads. Tuning in to any station was likely to result in ads and not music.
My radio is tuned to static so I can get into my car without being forced into hearing an ad while my Bluetooth connects and I can start playing a book.
There is a station I used to listen to 8 years ago when I saw heavy traffic (to decide if I need an alternate route) - this is in a tiny city which rarely has traffic issues. everyonce in a while I hear it in a store a something and I still know the song that will be next.
There’s 1 listener supported classical station and 1 listener supported news station, the rest are garbage constant ads or worse
Yes! But usually only when I’m driving. It’s either NPR or a local alternative station out of TJ. The local station is one of the only places I have heard Social Distortion, MxPx, Green Day, and some new rock band. It’s pretty fucking great.
I have started carrying cds in my car again, too. I’ve found quite a few great albums for $1-3 at thrift stores (great for Blu-rays too) or ripping CDs I borrow from the library. I also have a small mp3 player loaded with a bunch of music I’ve ripped or downloaded.
And I have AppleMusic for anything else.
Hell yes I do. There’s a great local rock station here.
