I suppose the question is whether you feel like paying to receive a variety of formats that offer a bit too much chatting by the air talent or prefer something like Pandora or Spotify at a subscription rate to be commercial free. If you had to chose 'spots' or 'DJ chatter', which is the lesser evil?
If satellite doesn't have anything going, then I generally default to local terrestrial radio, podcasts from by phone, or music via my phone. To answer your question; would I pay for Pandora or Spotify? Absolutely no.
Out of the blue:
if you listen to a computer driven station knowing nothing is live, do you feel you need to check in from time to time with a station that 'sounds' like they have a warm body in the building? Do you feel 'connected' to the outside world listening to a computer driven, nothing 'live', station?
Interesting question.. I can generally spot a voice-tracked station, mainly because I've set up literally dozens over the years. I can easily tell the difference between those jocks that really care and take the time to sound live when building their tracks, and those who are just slamming it together with generic blather without any concern for the song intro pace. It isn't a fair criticism though, because I'm in the business and super sensitive to those details. Your average listener wouldn't know the difference.
Do you feel a need to 'connect' here or there or does social media do the trick? (Some I ask feel they need to connect outside social media...in other words, beyond the friends).
Nope, but I am unusual. I have a Twitter account, Linkedin, but that's about it. Not very active on either. Never have had a Facebook page due to security and privacy issues. I don't listen to much talk radio, mainly because it's politically aligned, preaching to the choir. Nothing wrong with those who do though.
if spots were limited to a few seconds, say 5 to 7 seconds or about the length of a station liner between songs, would the spots be less offensive?
For subscription satellite music channels? To compete with streaming I'd say no jocks and 50% less liners. I''ll bet that satellite radio listeners know what channel they're listening to. It says it right on the radio screen, for God's sake.
For streaming music? I'm not familiar with what amounts to measuring Cume or TSL, and how that stacks up for ad sales for a live stream. Obviously, the ad rate for streams, probably because there are so many of them and copyright/geographic limitations, are much less valued than traditional radio.
And, back to topic, if an AM station was playing a music format not found on the FM dial, a format you describe as your favorite, would you listen to it on the AM dial?
That depends. Being in the business, I'd be curious to hear how the station presents itself, knowing the challenges of doing music on an analog AM station. I would admire the size of their kahones, yet pity their imminent demise (RIP), but that's about it.