[mtberatwork]

That's only an American phenomenon due to severe market consolidation. The model works when there's competition. In Europe, even the for-profit radio stations are far more diverse and play a wide variety of songs and genres. Plus the public radio stations blow anything stateside out of the water. They bring lots of innovation/musical diversity and aren't afraid to push boundaries, unlike the pure news/talk/tepidness that defines most NPR stations.