Bob’s Question

Over a year and a half after I read this article on radio, I keep coming back to it:

“Q: Why should I listen to your radio station?

After all, I have an iPod with more than 10,000 tunes that collectively form the soundtrack of my life. I have more music on my computer. I can listen to endless computer-generated combinations – better mix, better variety – that can surprise me and amuse me between now and whenever I lose my interest, my sanity, my life. My iPod can do all that; my computer can do it too.

So why should I listen to your radio station?

After all, I can listen to online stations that programme the music I like (70s retro … electronica … ambient), and many of these play without interruption, without call-letters, without commercials, without an intervening human presence.

So why should I listen to our radio station in this brave new world of choice and lifestyle-customisation and narrowcasting?

And yet listen I do. I need radio.”

Give the whole thing a read. It sums up most of my thoughts about what radio should be doing… and why so many stations leave me cold.