Why are radio stations stuck in the 70's? (Chicago: station, money)

[A2DAC1985]

Originally Posted by koctail

Whenever I scan the Chicago FM all I hear is 30+ year old songs from Boston, Elton John, Air Supply etc.. Does no station play current pop music? I can't even name any current popular bands. How do most find new music??

If only radio stations were stuck in the 70's.

Back then somebody with some coin could procure a license and put on a radio station. They could play or do whatever they wanted.

Now?

Those people that paid thousands of dollars for the license have been offered millions by corporate radio, and sold their stations. Now people in Atlanta get to dictate what gets put on "rock", and various other formats, stations across the country.

The same artists/bands/labels are stuffed down the radio listeners ear tubes because they "*know*" that people in Oregon like the same exact music styles and bands as people in Utah, and West Virginia, and Florida...


As for the 30+ year old music: It is proven. That's why it gets played. There is little that Boston, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and the like, could do to tarnish their music that was wildly successfully when it was first released. That's the reason why you don't hear the band Cain on classic rock stations.

[Plzeň]

Originally Posted by gomexico

Just adjust your tuner and you'll find a broad range of music on the FM band.

The same 4 or 5 generic corporate formats as every other city is not "a broad range of music." You have to go to the internet for that.

[marothisu]

In college I was a DJ for a radio station and it was extremely fun. I could basically play whatever I wanted to as long as it didn't have any swear words in it. Record labels would send us a bunch of crap every single day to listen to and maybe play, although I will tell you that we were required to play at least one song per 2 hour period from a small handful of newer albums from the larger labels. I actually never did this (HAHA). The theme of my radio show would have probably been compromised. Of course, the record company dictates to you a list of 4-6 "acceptable" songs from the album that you may play.

The thing is that more radios can play whatever they want than you'd think. Deal is that it's all about ratings and how many listeners you have. You may very well play whatever, but for a lot of stations, it's a business so that's why many keep it safe and play the hits, or songs that will become a hit. There's still a lot of people, believe it or not, who just listen to whatever is given to them and don't go out of their way to learn about new

One of my radio shows was all about underrated tracks from bands you already know from the 60s and 70s like Hendrix or whatever, or just good songs from bands you may not even know like Vanilla Fudge. I recognized the fact that a lot of the crap on radio is usually not the best because the record company basically "tells" the radio station "only these 4 songs are acceptable" and sometimes they completely miss the mark.

[almost3am]

Originally Posted by MannheimMadman

Are you serious? 101.9, 103.5. and 96.3 all play the same top 40 garbage over and over.

That is a list of stations that play on the 25 year old built-in radio in our house. I have three small children (7 and under) that like pop music, and two of the three can sing along to many of the songs on the radio, that is how small their play list is.

[MannheimMadman]

Originally Posted by SJaye

Except, for some reason, 101.9 only plays songs that have been around at least 4-8 months and have already been played out by the other two stations listed here.

Ha, that is true. I laugh when the booming voice announces, "NEW MIX MUSIC!" and what follows is a song from January.

[linicx]

That's strange. Youi can get the hottest rock from around the world on iTunes radio, Panda and other radio apps for iPhone and Smartphones like Android.

[jwaiter]

CHIRP Radio | From the Chicago Independent Radio Project won best Chicago radio station in the Reader's 2011 poll...

Best overall radio station

[Plzeň]

Originally Posted by BigGunsBigBullets

Why would you allow your kids to listen to music that has no substance? Are you trying to program them to have bad taste in music for the rest of their life?

Meh, they're kids. I listened to plenty of bad pop music as a kid in the 80's and grew up to have good taste in music.

Pop music is sort of like ketchup on a hotdog. It's acceptable for kids, as long as your tastes develop appropriately as you age.

[rparz]

Originally Posted by koctail

Whenever I scan the Chicago FM all I hear is 30+ year old songs from Boston, Elton John, Air Supply etc.. Does no station play current pop music? I can't even name any current popular bands. How do most find new music??

Before I blew out of town they launched 88.7 to bring back a q101 type of format. Plus, 93.1 XRT plays some old stuff along with the newer indie type hipster stuff.

But, with everyone under the age of 35 with an iphone/ipod whatever, who's left listening to the radio?
There was a four year stretch that if I wasn't listening to satellite radio, it was only stations on the AM dial.

[eastwestman]

I like the classic rock format a lot, but the repetition kills me. If you didn't know better, you would think Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, or the Stones only wrote about a ten songs. They should start playing deeper cuts to keep the listener's interest.