[mobilene]

I'm the OP, and I'm surprised to find this article on HN at all, let alone the front page!

Many comments are focusing on music but the thing I tried to get across in the article was that good radio wasn't primarily about the music, it was about fun and connection. A good DJ kept you from just turning the radio off when you heard that same hit the fourth time today -- you wanted to keep listening because the DJ made it fun. It made homework and hobbies feel a lot less lonely. A Spotify playlist sure as heck can't do that.

[leeter]

Possibly controversial opinion, but radio stopped being relevant to me personally when congress removed the ownership restrictions for a single market. It's only gotten worse from there IMO. Radio is about catering to a very specific, and generally older, market at least where I am.

[mobilene]

Not controversial, not even within the DJ community.

[win311fwg]

The local college station was still pretty fantastic until COVID hit. They shut the studio down during that time and most of the good DJs left. It never recovered.

[JohnFen]

Agreed. That was the beginning of the end of good radio.

[JohnFen]

> A good DJ kept you from just turning the radio off when you heard that same hit the fourth time today -- you wanted to keep listening because the DJ made it fun.

I'm old enough to remember when radio was king, but if that's what a good DJ does, then I suppose I've never heard a good DJ. Personally, I preferred the DJ who talked as little as possible and had good taste and variety in the music they chose to play.

But yes, we are poorer for their passing. They've been gone for a very long time, but I've still yet to see anything that can adequately replace them.

[mobilene]

In commercial radio, DJs haven't selected the music in 40 or more years. I used to show up for my shifts to find a printed playlist from a software product called Selector. I had to follow it.

[ryandrake]

Also, most commercial radio DJs would talk and talk and talk all the way up to the point in the song where lyrics started, and then right after the last lyric, they'd start yacking again. A lot of music that was on the radio in the 70s, 80s and 90s had great instrumental intros and outros that you just totally missed because some garbage DJ had to get in one last "TODAY'S HITS, YESTERDAY'S LEGENDS, ONLY ON IDIOT ROCK 95.1!!!"

[scioto]

Back in the later 70s a Chicago three-letter AM radio station used to speed up songs so they could stuff in more commercials. And the DJ would do the parent’s talking when there’s no lyrics, even to the point of talking through the entire Love Unlimited Orchestra’s Love’s Theme instrumental.

[ryandrake]

I never understood the business reason for doing this. Do they really think listeners will switch away if they go 500 milliseconds without hearing a human voice?

[Modified3019]

It’s the opposite, they do it to fit in more commercials, because apparently people don’t switch away when they talk over songs.

[mark-r]

I believe talking through the intro was an actual skill that was taught to DJs, and the closer they could cut it the prouder they'd be. I've always hated it, and there have been occasions when I've switched stations because I couldn't take it anymore.

[mark-r]

There's a local station that advertises the fact that they don't do requests. I'm sure the reason they don't is because they can't - the playlist was mapped out long ago and there will be no deviations. The main DJ voice is some guy reportedly from Vancouver who records the voiceovers for this station and probably 40 others just like it. What he lacks in spontaneity he makes up for in snark.

[PaulHoule]

There was that time I was tripping on acid at 2am and was offended by hearing the same Doobie Brothers song that plays during my drive in and my drive out and called up the college radio station thinking, "I'm either going to talk to the janitor or the program manager", turns out the program manager picks up the phone and I ask him, "Who picks this music out?" and he says "I do" and that it's programmed on the computer. I told him "Come on, you can play anything you want to play" so he put on a Miles Davis disc.

[technothrasher]

Your Miles Davis comment triggered a memory of college radio. In school in the early 90's, I had a 3-6am show Wednesday mornings, and mostly said and played whatever I wanted, as nobody was really listening anyway. One week, the guy who did the Friday night 6-8pm slot called me and asked if I could sub for him. I was way down on the call list, but nobody wanted to sub on a Friday night. So I took his slot and did my normal show. I immediately got a bunch of complaint calls that I was crap (which was fair, I was), and one guy who kept calling in over and over demanding I play Miles Davis.

On the other side of the coin, I also had a 10am Saturday news slot, which was just a quick 10 minute read of my pick of the top stories off the AP feed. I was on the city bus discussing the slot with my buddy who did the sports right after me, and the bus driver overheard us and said he listened to the station on his bus route, and loved us on Saturday mornings more than the other news readers. He was my only known fan in my very short lived radio "career".

[win311fwg]

One time I tuned into college radio and not long after came on a song from my own band. The only recording of our music was from a jam session that we put on CD that we handed out to a few friends and we hadn't played together in many years by that point so it was quite a shock to hear it.

[tarentel]

I did college radio for a bit. You could play whatever you wanted up to a certain extent. At least where I was at, ~'06, you could play like 30? minutes of whatever you wanted, it's been a while might be more or less. The other x minutes of your hour you had to play a selection of music. It was a very wide range of things so you could easily find something to fit into your show but it had to be from the pool that college got.

Maybe other colleges did it differently but we didn't have a program manager or anything. Everyone was free to do what they wanted outside of some FCC rules and what I previously mentioned.

[JohnFen]

> In commercial radio, DJs haven't selected the music in 40 or more years.

Yes, I'm painfully aware. That was what got me to stop listening to music radio.

[customguy]

Once upon a time in Southern Germany, there was the one and only C-Team...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GRBn7Vn2U0&t=775s

Obviously it loses a lot if you don't speak German, but they were very funny and silly and interacted with their fans a lot, to say the least.

[TitaRusell]

I don't know how it worked in Germany but in the Netherlands the government had a monopoly on broadcasting. Their public radio stations did not play rock and roll and was not in tune with "youth culture".

[customguy]

Rock'n'roll yes. Youth culture seems harder for me to say anything about, because that can mean a wide range, attitude towards drugs etc. But popular music young people dance to, for sure. You remember Neue Deutsche Welle, right?

Dunno if they were "in tune" though, maybe I'm too literal, because in my mind, anything, even the coolest stuff, that was made by adults and/or legal was not the stuff. Actual youth culture can only happen among the youth, if you know what I mean, so there's at least always this lag.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

We had SWF3 with Anke Engelke. WDR with specials(Electronic mostly). BFBS(British Forces Broadcasting Services).

In and around Bonn, in the 80ies. Guess there have been more, but they were out of reception range.

[Lendal]

There's no reason it can't. You could do the same thing on streaming as was done back in the radio days. I've been searching for it but haven't really found it yet.

So far the closest thing I found was when Huey Lewis did a radio show on Apple Music. You couldn't call in and there were no contests, but it's a bit of talking from someone likable, separated by a couple of songs they introduce which you also like. That's basically the format of radio, in its most basic form.

I've searched a bit for that type of format on streaming. Sure there's always TuneIn or MyTuner apps which are interesting but those shows are always tailored to a specific faraway city that you don't know much about, or they're in a different language, or they're sports talk related which I'm not interested in.

I'm specifically looking for music I like and a likeable person talking and introducing songs, just like the clips you have on your web site. I just don't understand how that can be so expensive that big tech companies with deep pockets like Apple Music don't want to produce it. What's up with that?

[TomK32]

BBC 6music has a lot of great DJs, Chris Hawkins being my favourite with plenty of banter for a 5am show. While it's just a Friday late night show: Ashley Storrie on BBC Radio Scotland and don't be surprised if you hear the same listeners sending in messages on both stations. But then, they aren't commercial stations with less pressure. Whenever I have to listen to an Austrian (where I live) station I get bored. Even the public funded stations have commercials or, even more annoying, un-labeled advertising for the lottery.

[imglorp]

I miss DJs with taste and encyclopedic knowledge of their music would challenge their listeners, educate them, expose them to new things. Variations on themes, new artists, connections with old ones. Now, I guess they read the blurb and hit the button on the canned program.

Shouts to Pierre Robert (rip), John DeBella, Cyndy Drue, etc at WMMR and WYSP (rip). They still let Jacky Bam Bam play the real stuff sometimes; at least the bots take a break for his show.

[yesiamyourdad]

I wasn't a fan of drive-time radio, but WYSP had Metal Shop at something like 11PM Friday. That's where I discovered Metallica, Megadeth, Anvil, WASP, all the Metal Blade era music. I've never had anything algorithmic show me that much new music that quickly.

[boogieknite]

yes and also my spouse and i have the opposite where we enjoy listening to 89.5 whenever we pass through Seattle. we find the amateur students who try to sound smart and cool really endearing and entertaining

[bsenftner]

Radio also was your connection to your city and the city's youth communities. Which are now fragmented, subcultures, and frequently dominated by someone trying to make the scene into their living. As far as I know, nothing has filled that community void, and community itself is dying.

[mobilene]

Local community is probably irreparably damaged. But I was a kid with niche interests and I didn't start to find my people until the Internet entered my life in 1989.

[rablackburn]

> Local community is probably irreparably damaged. But I was a kid with niche interests and I didn't start to find my people until the Internet entered my life in 1989.

Sounds like you should start listening to some community radio stations. They don't even have to be your local community, I promise that somewhere in your timezone there is a community radio station broadcasting something you want to listen to.

Try our local one in Brisbane (where Bluey is from) that has been running since 1975 and started as a university student protest station: https://4zzz.org.au

You might not like the show you hear when you click, but look at their catalogue of shows and you'll find something.

Community can always be rebuilt.

[bsenftner]

I was a 'classic 70's latch key kid', that somehow discovered underground radio during elementary. Starting with "Dr. Demento" somewhere in my youth, by 6th grade it was "no commercial potential radio", mimeographed fanzines from everywhere on earth kids liked music + comics, and the punk rock + art music underground with shows at Unitarian Churches and abandoned buildings.

[xhkkffbf]

You do realize that the radio stations and everyone who worked at them used their radio "scene" as a way to make a living, right?

[bsenftner]

The scale of a radio station, versus the scale of one promoter today is night and day. The ownership of distribution of information is a curious thing; when it was more controlled we had community, and when that control relaxed the previous "controllers" did everything in their power to pollute the new communications channels with bad actors, essentially destroying the potential for community to form again. If someone cannot control the entire apparatus, those that cannot make sure the medium is non-commercially useful. Part of their protection of their medium, no others can be allowed to become viable as a replacement.

[mingus88]

Check out bandcamp. It’s artist focused and they have shows with DJs that focus on highlighting new releases.

I even subscribe to one for Metal for $10/months they’ll give you a new album every month like one of those old CD clubs. Interviews and listening parties too.

If you are looking for a sense of community like radio used to have, it’s a lot closer than podcasts IMO. Everyone has a podcast but this is something else.

[PaulHoule]

My son got used to listening to the local classic rock station i100 and one thing that is really fun is that the DJ's are local performers and celebrities. The station promoted an event for Ronnie James Dio last weekend

https://mastodon.social/@UP8/tagged/dioday

and this guy and another DJ were there with their own bands

https://mastodon.social/@UP8/116954456921377276

Even though the station is run by remote control much of the time and the sales manager recently got poached by the Buffalo Bills it's so much fun to get to know these people in real life. (I appreciate it how Billy, pictured, plays alternative rock, kinda like Green Day, even if the station's playlist got closed out around 1992)

[PunchyHamster]

> It made homework and hobbies feel a lot less lonely. A Spotify playlist sure as heck can't do that.

People use podcasts for it now

[baron3dl]

I do miss the DJs of my childhood local rock station, WHJY, Providence. They were with me in the car for many, many hours. It's nostalgia though, I tuned out when they hired a program manager that played too much early 80's rock, like Van Halen, and not enough alternative. I tuned out after the 400th time the PM DJ dunked on his cohost's weight, the 347th time the AM DJs made a prank call, and the 500th time the evening DJ objectified his sultry-voiced intern. Later, I cancelled SiriusXM because I couldn't listen DJs anymore, not one more word.

I miss the locality, the connection, the need to cope outside the safe zone for nothing other than lack of options. Despite the nostalgia, and sensing what is lost, I think I would make the same choice again. Mostly so I never have to hear Jump again.

[jccalhoun]

Small world. I'm sitting here in Terre Haute as I write this. I moved here about a decade ago so radio was already well on its way to the lowest common denominator before I got here. All I know about WBOW is that they turn into all Christmas music after Thanksgiving.

[mobilene]

The current WBOW isn't actually connected to the OG WBOW, which was on AM at 1230. It went off the air in 2001 after the owner was convicted of some pretty awful crimes. Another company resurrected the call letters on FM some years later.

[moralestapia]

Hi Jim, I was involved in radio as a kid and it was one of the most formative experiences of my life. I remember that fondly.

A few questions, as I'd like to hear your take on this.

First, a premise, I think the audience is still out there, as there 10,000s perhaps 100,000s of people that would enjoy the experience you describe and would even pay for that, so it can be sustainable.

Anyway here's the questions:

1. Why not doing that yourself through the internet? Your own radio station, your rules. What usually stops one from accomplishing this?

and

2. What/why do you think the essence of what you describe does/would not translate to the online model? (if you think that's the case)

Thanks!

[jeffnv]

There's many stations that still do it just like the good old days. KEXP in Seattle is on my dial most of the time. I text the DJs most days to say thanks for the great show!

[gumboshoes]

I still work in radio and have for more than 30 years. Perhaps I'm an outlier, but I never cared about the DJs, never felt a connection, never wanted their Morning Zoos or their Tammy and Frankie in the Morning junk, with the fake callers, the forced laughs, the crappy contests, the gossip lifted from other uncredited sources. All I ever wanted was lots of unrepeated music. Or, failing that, lots of intelligent talk and news.

[euroderf]

You might get all-music at night. But in the mornings radio listeners want to hear talking.

[gumboshoes]

I don't want to hear morning show hijinx. I will gladly listen to well-produced news and features.

[mark-r]

I never used to like the morning show hijinx either, until I discovered that a friend hosted such a show. I tuned in every morning after that. He retired a couple of months ago, and I think I've only listened to the show twice since then. His replacements are OK but there's no draw anymore.

[bufordtwain]

Lin Brehmer of WXRT Chicago was really good, he died not too long ago though. Since then I almost never turn the radio on in the car. Iggy pop does a great show on BBC radio 6 (online) and he plays good music but his many anecdotes and opinions are what really keep me listening.

[libraryatnight]

I used to work graves and some stations would have shows at odd hours that played variety you might not hear during the day. The DJ as a curator is a role I miss. I also miss the notion someone else local was awake. Other night owls might call in and comment or make requests.

[devilbunny]

Since you worked in radio, at WZZQ no less, you probably would enjoy the story of the earlier WZZQ.

https://www.pbs.org/show/wzzq-the-movie/

[jonhohle]

I’ve always felt that way as well. It doesn’t matter how perfect a playlist is, what a masterpiece an album is, the humanity of a real person selecting the music, and interjecting comments or style along the way just feels different.

[Modified3019]

Listening to the local collage radio during my teens was formative, and the exposure to all kinds of things I would have never had heard otherwise still heavily colors my musical taste to this day.

Most of the time songs were played randomly from a huge list, there were no “hits”, and this was exactly what I wanted.

If there was a song I liked, I had to quick record it to tape, because otherwise I likely wouldn’t hear it again for days or weeks.

There would at times be people DJing for time segments, but it was relaxed and music focused, not person focused. I’ll take some dead air and a soft spoken young adult just giving the name of the next song vs bombastic “personalities” any day.

Another big key to it, was my college radio station didn’t have advertisements. Radio ads are grating and repulsive and I simply cannot tolerate that shit. Same thing with TV ads, which is a big reason I basically stopped watching TV in my late teens as well.

I cherish and miss the radio experience that I personally had, but when I hear what others subject themselves to I simply cannot fathom why.

These days my tastes are mostly adjacent to doom or psych-rock, and my modern day radio replacement is following some curators on YouTube whose hobby/side job is to find new releases in these genres and dig up old gems. Which makes it easy for me to quickly find and add (mostly through Bandcamp) new songs into my own collection every so often, which I then self host and further rate/curate via navidrome.

Basically I’ve always been a very active, rather than passive music enjoyer.

I suppose anything thing to bring up, is if I was listening to people on the radio doing something interesting, then I end up either needing to be randomly cut off from it to do something else, or try to constrain my schedule to their show. Not fun at all.

[ge96]

I remember I had a data entry job and we were only allowed to bring in old tech like a CD player or radio. So I was listening to a local radio station and they posed the question "would you go back in time and kill Hitler" which I was like "shit I gotta call in and say my opinion".

[episode404]

Just wanted to give another opinion on this topic because I think people are being overly nostalgic about radio in this thread: For as long as I can remember I have hated radio with a passion. The constant interruption of the occasional good song, the endless nonsense-talking hosts, the unfunny jokes, the annoying ads, the same songs over and over, etc. I hate radio and I’m glad it’s gone. I don’t miss it at all! Cheers A millennial

[jauntywundrkind]

I want to say thank you, so much because, it feels like radio & these people who worked to create these enjoyable spaces, filled with such life: it feels like that is so rapidly becoming such a lost art. And it just feels like theres so little we leave to the future to remember this by. That as things get bleaker and worse, there's so few artifacts to point to like this that tell the good tale.

Elsewhere in this thread I poured out such joy and happiness about so many station that are so beloved to me, are just darling special places. I want so badly to imagine https://mountainchill.com KRKQ to be broadcasting from Telluride Colorado for a hundred, a thousand years. It's something so special.

Yet the story, the sadness you tell here, identifying forces eroding us, our great Society, with nothing of substance and meaning in its place: it's just getting so much worse, in so many ways and places.

The mechanized take-over of the airwaves, the public's airwaves, that the FCC has congressional mandate to use and protect & make good for the public, is ongoingly getting so much worse, on and on. The takeover by right wing aligned outlets like Sinclair has been so bad, so ongoing, has so few hopeful counter-examples if things going right at any scale. Lots of small positive lights, but this chewing up of the world by hostile above-human quasi-immortal corporate super orgs is on full display in radio, in broadcast.

Trump I's FCC overturning congressional media ownership requirements has been part of this. There are only three major players in radio left, since these rules, and two of them are trying to merge right now, for a $6.2B merger. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15716219 (2017), and excellent article today, https://karlbode.com/local-u-s-tv-news-will-soon-be-entirely...

Meanwhile that same Carr run FCC is doing everything it can to chill and ruin free speech, to terrorize anyone with speech they find disagreeable. Orban style totalitarianism, right here at home. Ghastly ghastly anti-democratic, anti freedom, anti-liberty, just the smallest possible weasel stuff, shame beyond shame to these weak spirited cowards.

> "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile but is morally treasonable to the American public."

Theodore Roosevelt, 1918

Meanwhile this same administration has all but destroyed the National Endowment for the Arts. Countless radio stations have had to make drastic efforts to stay afloat, as both a miniscule yet vital source of funding for such great public service has been cut, by these same foes of everything you've written of.

I want more than a memory. In the comments below I've shared some truly great amazing stations I love, that folks can tune into from anywhere and enjoy. I an a proud supporting member at multiple stations. Yet, with forces like this, big, scary, corrupt, evil, un American, in my view demonic forces like this, with Powell Memorandum operations to corporate and own the airwaves for private and increasingly political interest, I fear writing like this will serve all too strongly as a necessary vital remembrance of a past, one that few people would otherwise have any ability to connect to. With a tear and with thanks, let me say I really appreciate this write up, and I hope it will not be so very necessary for so very long into our future. With apologies for being a bit pointed, obviously, but for hopefully reasonable or understandable, good spirited cause... May there be better times ahead, may the people enjoy the airwaves & making special places of them together again.