How in the hell can anyone stand to listen to a radio station these days? Honestly. I don't know if radio has gotten worse or I'm just becoming a nasty curmudgeon in my old age. It's probably both so let's just focus on the stuff that doesn't implicate me.
First of all, the commercials. I realize they have to pay their bills, but come on, there's way too much. It seems like the commercials to content ratio is 50/50 these days. It feels like a chore you have to endure in order to get a little content.
Second, music stations suck because most of the music they play sucks, it's the same crap we've heard a thousand times before, there's no original thought behind any of it.
So the only radio I find remotely tolerable is talk radio, or at least, news radio. Give me some information.
But even that is completely overrun with commercials. You get 5 minutes of talk, then five minutes of obnoxious commercials. And yet, I understand that without commercials, the stations can't operate. So getting a TiVo for the radio won't help, because if people start skipping commercials, advertisers will probably stop advertising.
What to do? If I was running a radio station, I'd have more commercials. Yeah, that sounds contradictory, but hear me out. I'd have more commercials but they would be SHORTER. Much shorter, and only one at a time. Each one would be a maximum of 30 seconds long. So you would barely notice the interruption, even though the interruption would be coming every couple of minutes.
I can live with commercials if they are really short. But five to ten minute blocks? Forget it.
Until the stations figure this out, I'll just listen to podcasts.
