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why would anyone listen to FM T-radio in Philly for music

Bongwater said:
Commercial terrestrial radio has a certain order that some currently find appealing. It's not usually my first choice in 2018 because I can remember a time and not very long ago, I was once 100,000 watt dedicated to terrestrial radio. I'm at increasingly conflicted odds these days. But for others today, it still is.

Non-commercial terrestrial radio is almost a completely different beast altogether. But already, easy listening, oldies, AAA and other discarded formats end up here.

But as commercial radio chases the kids for the sake of semi-relevance in an age where many young people have actually never even HEARD of a radio. This is not a joke. I introduced not one but FIVE teenagers to radio in the last THREE years. Again, I am not making this up. But I don't blame them at all. Or even their parents. High tech distracts. Look at where we are now talking.

But the point is terrestrial radio is now probably showing it's age. Which by having two teenage kids personally is not hard to observe. They're not growing up in the era of Gary Lockwood, Charlie & Ty, Crow & West and the legendary stuff of Seattle radio I grew up with. They want to cut to the chase. Which is music.

It doesn't bode well for the future of the local "air personality" on commercial radio stations at this rate (but let's be honest and face this; It isn't like anything else really has in the last 22 years.) And in 2018, this is where we are. And what's shaped in the past (right now) often sets the course for the discernible future.
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I don't think radio has never been the first choice of the younger generation. Singles, 8 tracks, cassettes (mixtapes), CD's and Mp3s have always been the thing for them. Even in my early 20's when I got started in radio, my peers spent time making their own tapes and CD's, but we listened to radio to discover new music and trends. When I hit my late 20's my music collection was less important. I just wanted a easy to access music. That was radio and is still the choice of the 25-54 age group.

Talk to folks in their mid 50's and older and they will say radio (new music in general) is awful. "Give me the days when music and radio was great"

I have a good friend who just turned 60. He says "with all due respect I can't stand your station, but he also quit keeping up with music in 1980. He said "Now if you would play some Marty Robbins, and John Prine I might listen". I said Marty Robbins is okay, but he is ancient to me. I remember my dad listening to him. He laughed.

There are kids now who couldn't name 3 or 4 Prince, Madonna, or Michael Jackson songs.

The method hasn't changed. It is the person that has aged.



Radio is still very much alive and well.
 
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Groove1670 said:
I don't think radio has never been the first choice of the younger generation. Singles, 8 tracks, cassettes (mixtapes), CD's and Mp3s have always been the thing for them.
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Imagine a world with no cassettes, no 8-tracks, no CDs, no recordable devices at all. If you can imagine that, that's what it was like to live in the 50s and 60s. So those folks had no choice but to hear their music on the radio. Or go to a store and buy records (that they couldn't sample before hand).

Folks from that era think radio has changed. But really, a lot more than radio has changed.
 
TheBigA said:
Imagine a world with no cassettes, no 8-tracks, no CDs, no recordable devices at all. If you can imagine that, that's what it was like to live in the 50s and 60s. So those folks had no choice but to hear their music on the radio. Or go to a store and buy records (that they couldn't sample before hand).
.
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I remember the time in the later 50's and early 60's when record stores had listening booths where you could try a 45 before buying.

I bought 45's at several different ones like this in Ohio, and also at record stores in Miami, Mexico, El Salvador and Colombia.
 
When I-pods first came out and everyone had to have one to be cool, most people who bought these devices that could hold 10,000 songs had a couple hundred songs on them at most. These are the people who listen to fm radio. They like to hear the hits, they have a more passive response when it comes to music. They also do not desire to take the time to build their own playlists. They like the simplicity of just hitting a few buttons until they hear a song that they like. They also do not want to waste their precious data on streaming services. A couple years ago I started a mixshow on a hit music radio station that had some imaging with my name in it. I did not a say a word that it would be coming to your radio or the station. Within 5 minutes of it airing I started to get a bunch of texts of people asking me about it. Yeah if you asked those people who texted me about my mixshow that they were listening to on their fm radios, they would tell you that they don't listen to the radio.
 
CTListener said:
SiriusXM actually plays the last two occasionally. But you're right: Don't Fool with FuManChu (what?) by the Rockin' Ramrods (who?), an uber-stiff by any measuring stick, has never been heard on that service. You and, maybe, the members of the band may be the only people on this planet who think that's something that needs to be fixed.
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I knew Don't Fool with FuManChu charted on WIBBAGE, later part of 1965, found an old WIBBAGE survey that proves it.

View attachment 1198View attachment 1199
 
Gunsmoke said:
I knew Don't Fool with FuManChu charted on WIBBAGE, later part of 1965, found an old WIBBAGE survey that proves it.

View attachment 1198View attachment 1199
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Bad links. Here's one that works, to a WIBG survey from 10/18/65. That monster hit by The Rockin' Ramrods was #87 that week, and was gone two weeks later. But then, WIBG had a 99-song survey at that time, far larger than any other station I've ever heard of. I always thought that having a Top 50 was a lot.

http://www.las-solanas.com/arsa/chart_view.php?sv=31339

Believe it or not, this garage band from Boston has a Wikipedia page and this song is on YouTube. I'll have to give it a listen to see if it was any good. I wonder if it was a hit anywhere in New England.
 
TheBigA said:
Imagine a world with no cassettes, no 8-tracks, no CDs, no recordable devices at all. If you can imagine that, that's what it was like to live in the 50s and 60s. So those folks had no choice but to hear their music on the radio. Or go to a store and buy records (that they couldn't sample before hand).
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In the '50s, maybe, but once cassettes became popular, starting in the mid to late 1960s, recording songs off the radio became common. Even though it was technically illegal, although I never heard of a record company going after anyone for it, we all did it. There were small (3" reels) tape recorders that were available for a reasonable price during this era, I don't think they sold a lot, compared to the better quality 7" reel-to-reel machines.
 
Groove1670 said:
There are kids now who couldn't name 3 or 4 Prince, Madonna, or Michael Jackson songs.


.
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I'm glad to report that my 9, 11, & 13 year olds can. They're exposed to a lot of music. WMMR is on a lot. Many different Sirius channels are on as well. Sure, they want to listen to Sirius Hits 1 all the time or the Pulse but, they're exposed to 80s on 8 (their Mom's favorite channel in her car), classic rewind and many other rock or pop stations or even country that's being beamed down to Earth from the Sirius-XM satellites or streamed at home on a phone or smart speaker. If we didn't have Sirius, I suppose in addition to WMMR, we'd be listening to more Q-102, Radio 104.5, WSTW, etc.
 
KeithE4 said:
Believe it or not, this garage band from Boston has a Wikipedia page and this song is on YouTube. I'll have to give it a listen to see if it was any good. I wonder if it was a hit anywhere in New England.
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Well, that's 2:20 I'll never get back. That was the worst pile of garbage I've ever heard from the '60s with the possible exception of The Archies.
 
Just some thoughts

.... perhaps the OP's question could've included ALL the markets, not just Philadelphia. When you have a handful of companies who own all the important stations in the big-magnet markets (Jerry Lee excepted :) the result can be a level playing field that's as moribund to some as it is apparently vital to the majority .....

.... we have five presets on our plain T-car radio. Three are for FM; two are on AM. There's classic rock (Eagle 107), classic hits (Hanna-FM) and jazz at night (WRTI's Pottsville relay). The AM's are standard-issue oldies WHLM 930 and KYW 1060. A buddy of ours from Long Island is on WHLM (Bob Gale). Our musical tastes are slaked, and we get the closest possible thing to regional weather and sports from KYW, especially in the winter. But once *any* of those stations start in with the commercials, au revoir ....

.... new current music discoveries for me no longer exist. (Lol -- I was in a hardware store last week. I must've looked b!+chin that day, because the clerk referred to me as 'young feller'. I must've been ten years older than he was.) Appearances notwithstanding, I was not about to exit the with a boom box next to my ear and Wayne-Campbell down the street, listening to any new pop music. Not when any new music on the radio sounds as though it's from off one of three over-processed record company assembly lines. Plus, I enjoy hearing what's left of my hearing ....

.... For the longest while, my Dad Al -- different person from the Reverend :) -- was not allowed a radio in his workplace. No one was allowed a radio. Not even the reception area. That ban was at Mobil laboratories until the mid-Seventies. So I'll never know what changed; what relaxed that edict, never mind when (or why) it became mandatory to be serenaded by *whatever* 24/7/52/365, at work, in the car, while shaving, waiting for a cab, during every waking and maybe every sleeping moment ....

.... I lost track of who mentioned 'slipping in a CD'. But once the music stops and the commercials on those 5 car buttons come out of the speakers like tentacles, we slip in a CD, especially on longer trips. All the CD's are from Oldies shows cadged off a few shows from -- ta-da -- the internet stations. We have a No-Repeat Retirement collection of them.....

.... all else fails, there is this new augmenting concept we discovered for the car. Conversation.
 
TheBigA said:
Because it's free, easy, and sufficient for what they want.

Why ask why? Go ahead and spend $14 a month for Sirius.
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People that want to hear their endless favorites will do it on their own, not rely on a medium that throws 15-18 minutes of advertising down your throats every 50 minutes, plays the same 200 burnt to a crisp corporate songs that few like anymore and endless, ridiculous chatter. The ones that want their music will get it. And spending 14 bucks a month is futile. Just store them on your laptop and play them at your heart's content, whenever you want, in whichever order you want. Problem solved.

Exactly why me and some of my friends do and this Labor Day Weekend, I'll be playing them to my content, every single L.A. #1 song, the way it used to be. Radio is a dying breed, you might as well work for the post office and be one of two desk clerks, handling a line of 27, exactly why I use UPS.
 
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Lots of things aren’t the way they were. That’s been true pretty much since humanity has existed. Hiding behind straw men like big, bad corporations doesn’t make that the real reason.

Those who wish to continue living in the past are fortunate enough now that they can (somewhat) do so. Rejoice and be happy about that. Many of the rest of us will live in the present.
 
TheBigA said:
Great...then stop lecturing us about how to do our jobs. Do you tell the postman how to do his?
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Not lecturing anyone. No need to get angry......as for the postman, don't need to. I'm sure they are very aware what the state of their company is in. As for radio in 2018, the technology is there, the presentations are not.
 
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