The Communications Act of 1934 stipulated that one entity could own one and only one radio station. Every radio station was an independent business. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 eliminated this limit, and instead stipulated that one entity was limited to owning four radio stations in any given market. It brought about massive consolidation. Prior to 1996 every single radio station was its own independent company; since then, there are huge corporations that own a shitload of radio stations. And they will have 2-4 programs; they play their hiphop program on their 300 hiphop stations, country on their 100 country stations, rock on their 150 rock stations, and talk radio on their 200 talk stations. And that's it. You have those 4 stations.
For the most part, prior to 1996, at any given radio station there was just some idiot kid who was just playing what he wanted to play. And sometimes he put on something that was...out there. It was at least interesting. After 1996, for the most part, music on radio stations is organized by market research groups that picks what to play based on some sort of wide consensus. You'll never get an interesting radio station that just plays weird random interesting shit. Everything has to be approved by a boardroom full of old rich people.
Radio is dull as dishwater these days. I mean it's always been bad, but at least sometimes it was interesting.
College radio is the last bastion of reliably weird shit.
Find a station and listen at night. My local station WONC until some years ago had punk and metal shows after midnight which went through phases depending on who mainly ran those shows. The last gasp of the metal show was ~6 years of mostly European female-fronted orchestral metal occasionally taking forays into metal core, Gothenburg metal and screamo. Stuff these days you can explore to your heart's content on YouTube, but there is no assurance that what the algo turns up is any good.
I will never forget the one time I tuned into a college station on a whim and they were playing a jam session recording from my band; a band that had disbanded about a decade prior and biggest claim to fame was playing to like five people at a bar. What are the chances that it was played at all and I just happened to be tuned in? A pleasant surprise nevertheless.
Today the best music centered radio stations are all online. Frequencies, transmitters and repeaters cost a lot more than servers and bandwidth, so most online-only radios can still air what they want without being forced to surrender their play schedule to record labels.
If Clear Channel hadn't consolidated AOR and Modern Rock radio, would you still be listening to linear radio today, and not Spotify or Apple Music? And that because you don't have linear radio, and primarily because of that, have you switched from rock to hip-hop or to not listening to music?
> have you switched from rock to hip-hop or to not listening to music?
Less music, at least. I moved on to informational radio once the rock stations became unlistenable. The local public broadcaster produces some wonderful content about science, technology, and business.
These days, I do subscribe to a number of podcasts recorded from out-of-market radio stations that still have decent musical content. While, granted, distribution to me is no longer linear, these programs are originally produced for linear radio play. If I could readily tune in to those stations without the technical encumberments, I probably would.
I also use Spotify from time to time, but it replaced CDs, not the radio. That's an entirely different ballgame. I don't see it scratching the same itch.
Probably? Because now I listen to a few streaming "radio" stations when I am in the car or doing work around the house. They are "linear" and human-programmed. Some pay for licensing and some likely do not.
My current go-to was called Devil's Night Radio but they now stream under the name KPJK (a Twin Peaks ref) in addition to running a quirky cabin rental place in CA. Lots of garage rock, punk, classic Americana, old country/western, TV and movie soundtrack stuff...it's an odd mix but I love it.
I use Youtube Music to look something up if I am on the road and I really just want to hear something I uploaded from my personal collection, but for discovery and just letting someone else take the reins, streaming "radio" is still my fave.
Under the heading “Later criticism” there is a bit of an explanation; I guess the ownership rules changed so stations were consolidated to fewer owners.
> The legislation eliminated a cap on nationwide radio station ownership and allowed an entity to own up to four stations in a single market. Within five years of the act's signing, radio station ownership dropped from approximately 5100 owners to 3800. Today, iHeartMedia is the largest corporation with over 860 radio stations under its name across the nation.
What happened with that? I'm not familiar with this.