Anybody out There Still Listening to Music on AM or FM Radio?

I do in my work car as it has no aux or bluetooth. In my car I listen to XM mainly. I switch over if the kids are in the car and something comes on that they don't need to hear.
 
i list to a little radio in the car. Also have a radio in the shop. same for most friends' shops.
 
Mega6 said:
FM in the car..sometimes. cd players been jammed for years. most of the time a blown V8 sounds better so it's off. High pitched scream of a ported blower is something to behold at 16 pounds of boost. Simply crushes you into your seat. Second only to med to heavy shot of Nitrous.
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Tell me about it:

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Mostly I listen to sports radio, because there is NOTHING music-wise to listen to on the radio anymore, unless you're into country, pop, or rap. Rock consists of the moldy oldies & the same 13-song playlist they had in 1968, or lame crap like nickelback and smashmouth. Forget any form of even remotely decent metal without a streaming service.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I like Steve Guttenberg. His articles usually come up with great low cost audio configurations, and he doesn't fall for the car-priced audio-jewelry like so many in the business.

That being said, I don't know why radio should be missed and lamented. It's mostly garbage.

I remember listening music on the radio in the early 90's when I was a tween and still had a radio.

Then at some point in the mid 90's I was able to burn mix CD's. Why would I choose to have some random DJ play music I may or may not like, when I can play exactly what I like when I want to?

Then I pretty much stopped listening to new music in the late 90's. Nothing new appealed to me anymore. It was just plain garbage, and since most of the music on the radio is new stuff, I had even less incentive to listen to the radio.

One summer in college in 2002 I had a paid internship and commuted to and from it in my car which didn't have a CD player, so I did listen to some music during my drive. I was disgusted at the horrible crappy state of new popular music in 2002. That was the last time I intentionally heard music on the radio.

I have essentially sworn off commercial radio all together. These days I have my radio in my car pretty much permanently tuned to the local news station, and that's all I ever hear in the car. I rarely ever listen to music at all in the car anymore, but when I do, its via the aux in, with Spotify as the source.

At home most of my music comes via Spotify as well, through to my custom 3 room setup, based around Spotify Connect on a HTPC receiver.

Funny thing is, for the first time since I was like 12, I actually have had a radio in the house for the last year or so, in my HTPC receiver, but I don't think I've used it more than once or twice to test if it was working.
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The sad truth is, the RIAA (MAFIAA) have ruined music radio.

Once upon a time (KNUS/KZEW 98FM) played whatever the DJs felt like playing, which meant you would find some seriously great stuff off the deep tracks of the albums, AND said DJ would then find other artists/albums that went together with that first one, thematically or musically, which meant finding new stuff damn near on a daily basis, which sent you scurrying to the record store.

No more. Now the RIAA handcuffs the stations, to the point where the "best" one out there (as far as variety, at least) is JACK-FM, because they just have no DJs at all, only robots. And that still blows massive monkey balls.

Hell, compared to that, Z-ROCK was far and away better, because they had the same vibe as KZEW. But they got run out of business by Tipper Gore and the RIAA.

So, yeah, broadcast radio sucks. I'm surprised that streaming hasn't reached that level of suck yet, either.
 
Big_Rig_Stig said:
Mostly I listen to sports radio, because there is NOTHING music-wise to listen to on the radio anymore, unless you're into country, pop, or rap. Rock consists of the moldy oldies & the same 13-song playlist they had in 1968, or lame crap like nickelback and smashmouth. Forget any form of even remotely decent metal without a streaming service.
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Sucks for you. The rock station here plays a good mix of old and new and you generally don't hear the same song in a 5 hour period. I only really listen to the morning show going to work. Don't like the afternoon lady. She a hipster pot head that just annoys me. So I just listen to Pandora at my desk at work.
 
Skillz said:
Only in a vehicle without bluetooth or an aux port.
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When I was driving big rigs OTR, I had unlimited data, so I'd stream KTCK-The Ticket from Dallas CONSTANTLY, until either the programming day was done, the content went south, or I was out of service, when I'd just play my metal playlist.
 
ole-m said:
Yes, bluetooth to FM adapter for my old bmw E46 beater.
They've shut down FM net in Norway for some hilarious reason, now it's only DAB so now I don't get any news, information in my life..

It's kinda nice actually.
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Those pesky recording companies, always out to.orevebt those scofflaw kids from recording their property they put out on the free airwaves.
 
Tried listening to the online versions of a few stations recently and they throw about 5 minutes of ads at you before any music or talk show starts. So both broadcast and online are dead to me. It's like cable TV; nobody wants it anymore.
 
Tekara said:
AM and BBC shortwave here
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I thought the BBC had ceased shortwave transmissions in the Americas and Europe, only maintaining it for Africa and the middle East and parts of Asia.

Big_Rig_Stig said:
BBC shortwave would be nice in a car, if it were possible.
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Why not possible? While I am unaware of any head units with it built in, it would seem quite possible to hook one up using aux in.
 
dark_reign said:
Tried listening to the online versions of a few stations recently and they throw about 5 minutes of ads at you before any music or talk show starts. So both broadcast and online are dead to me. It's like cable TV; nobody wants it anymore.
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And now you ever learned EXACTLY what the media companies want: your attention on extortion, so you *can't* avoid the ads, and *can't* avoid the corporate-approved propaganda music lists.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I thought the BBC had ceased shortwave transmissions in the Americas and Europe, only maintaining it for Africa and the middle East and parts of Asia.



Why not possible? While I am unaware of any head units with it built in, it would seem quite possible to hook one up using aux in.
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I thought there was that pesky little matter of having a ham radio license involved ...
 
I mostly listen to news radio with traffic announcements in the morning, and Russ Martin on 97.1 in the evenings. Neither really play music in any measurable quantity.

Most of my new music exposure is through video games.
 
Yep, I sure do! I only listen to two stations: AM657 and 103FM. Both in the car but only AM657 at home because I can't catch 103FM there.
 
I listen to the radio on my Mobile phone on my daily commute, morning and evening.
Yes, the songs do tend to repeat often, but I get the news every half-hour, and breaking news as it happens.

FM Radio doesn't cost me anything, no Data, so i'm not that bothered to have to listen to the ads every now and then.
Its like TV, you have 15-20 minutes of Ads for every hour. You just have to ad a little more time for the news, and their announcements, which you don't get on TV.
 
FM radio rocks. In my country, 64kbps, being the basic Internet speed, is still too slow to stream internet radios in TuneIn.
 
occasionally at my house. Truck had a non functional AM radio ( factory stock JDM Kei truck ) which I have a radio to go in it, but have not gotten around to it. Car has a non functional tube amped AM radio ( 1950 Plymouth ). So really I listen to the sound of a screaming 3cyl or the low hum of a flathead 6cyl
 
To and from work in my truck (when I don't ride my motorcycle).
Talk radio for sure.
Still have a traditional alarm clock with built-in radio (though it's not set to a station)

In fact, in my archives I still have one of those super expensive CC Radios that I bought a while back.
Thing never worked worth a damn :(
 
Not sure what people don't understand, the ads are the reason the music is free on FM. If you don't want the ads then pay for a subscription based stream.
 
Mostly AM in the truck as we have a great bluegrass station here that blast more music than commercials, it is privately owned. My wife does the sirius xm thing and I hate it, i thought satelite was commercial free. Most of the time everything is off and I truly enjoy the silence.
 
I haven't listened to radio for music in just about 10 years. I listen to talk shows on Fox, NPR and The Bone on the daily drive.
 
I do when I'm in the car, and that's a lot, since I drive between work sites almost every day. I've won a fair amount of call-in contests for concert tickets, gift cards, etc.
 
I cannot say I listen to AM or FM anymore. When I was on the road alot I listened to talk station but almost never music. I hate country and find what they call "music" in the past 20 years is crap.
Now when I take a trip; It is a book on MP3.

Funny thing is as I get older I appreciate more an more the music from my parents generation.
Big band music, Jazz, Bossa Nova. To think this was the music that they listened to as young people really shows the generational divide. No wonder heavy metal sounded like nothing but noise to them.
 
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Most FM stations now are pretty lame, you can in part blame consolidation of these media companies. You're hearing the same formats over and over piped in via satellite from HQ.

Locally owned/operated stations that focus on community and program their own automation can still be good.
 
TheMadHatterXxX said:
Not sure what people don't understand, the ads are the reason the music is free on FM. If you don't want the ads then pay for a subscription based stream.
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But I remember the days when FM had very few ad breaks, whereas AM tended to push so many of them.

Since they mostly voice track or use a satellite service these days, it doesn't cost that much to run a radio station because nobody is there. Greed pretty much killed broadcast radio.
 
My 8 year old has an old alarm clock radio, just like the one from the Home Alone movies (that's why he wanted it). He listens to it religiously, mostly FM.
 
Every workday morning I hear local FM a couple minutes at a time, in between snooze-button presses.
My father keeps JACK-FM playing all the time at his place, as background noise.
Otherwise, no.
 
I think this is probably only including the U.S. Other Countries, especially the poor ones, depend on it for emergency broadcast, etc. I think it funny that some think the U.S. is the center of the universe.
 
I listen to Talk Radio all day untill the Brewer game comes out sometimes listen to that. I listen to Voice of Armarillo Freedom Fiends is my favorite show along with Gun Talk on news talk 940am
TB blinds the shit out of ya =) Commerical flicker flicker flicker I just picked up a CC Radio 2 off ebay for like 45.00 it sounds pretty good for AM use a loop on it as well and picks up Station just as good as my Old Aiwa which has two broken Casette decks and a Broken CD player would like to Curb it but always good to have a backup AM Radio since Walmart only sells like 2 different AM radios at store level and the rest are just FM. Since Radio Shack went out of business it's going to be hard pressed to find AM Radios and AM loops unless you look on Amazon or buy a C Crane Radio

RIP Art Bell
 
The death of AM/FM radio is at the hands of the same thing as traditional TV, advertisements. Too many, too often, too loud, and often irrelevant. I hate that I can't listen to metal without learning that I have a low testosterone problem, or classical without having to save the kittens. On the flipside, it does give me hope that the AM/FM bands may one day end up back in the public's hands.
 
I listen to radio music mostly in the car, and not very often. (Plus the music quiz that's been airing for several decades in Sweden on saturday mornings.)
Far more often I have the radio on to hear news and documentaries on the public service channels.
 
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