Radio

I was just having a chat to someone from local radio and sent off a quick e-mail to tail off the conversation:


Just to continue the conversation on music, since there's no more important subject in my life.

I figure there are two types of music consumer; Passive and Active.

Passive just switch on the radio and are happy to listen to the same songs days in day out. They find it comforting. Once a month they might buy a compilation CD from Tesco.

Active consumers go to gigs, scour obscure places for new music, join internet music groups, buy lots and lots of music.

Now I know that ------ is for the former and not the latter, so that's fair enough but i'm just wondering what the ratio of Active to Passive might be?

So here we sit. The Active Consumers. Desperately hoping that there might be a radio station aimed at us. 6Music stepped up to the plate and showed promise but then faltered and became a platform for comedians who - as you'd expect - prefer to be funny than to talk about music. This would be fine it the station was called 6Comedy.

More and stations appear to be moving real people out of the studios and just sticking on random songs. That's not a radio station, that's an iPod on shuffle.

Sure, Local Radio always has ties to the local community and that's as much of a reason as any for keeping it, but it's a shame that they don't feel it's part of their remit to broaden their listeners music horizons.

Do you think that i'll ever hear a song that blows me away on ------? A song which i'd not have heard if i'd not tuned in? A real reason to listen. I suspect not and it's a real shame.

Now I know the argument is that people switch off if you play a song they've not heard before, but i've never subscribed to that view. That would imply that people don't love songs on first listen, and we both know from personal experience that isn't the case.

Is there no way to have a slot where new music can get an airing? Not new, as in a song that a plugger from a big record company is pushing, but something with a small listener base which the people of -------- would like? A time of the day when people would be expecting something new and excting?

One day, one day.