Wired News has details of the latest move by the FM radio industry to survive in a world where they’re increasingly becoming irrelevant:
From Seattle and San Diego to Baltimore and Buffalo, more than a dozen big-city radio stations have converted to a format known as Jack-FM over the past two months. On Friday, even legendary New York City oldies station WCBS-FM dumped ’60s rock and joined the ‘Jack’ parade.
Boasting they’re “like an iPod on shuffle,” the new stations typically dump their disc jockeys in favor of huge song playlists that mimic a well-stocked portable music player.
The Jack format, which is already spawning imitators, could be a key to FM’s survival as an alternative to satellite radio, internet radio and MP3 players.
This just reeks of desperation. It’s also a way to get rid of employees. And it’s going to turn listeners away, too.
I rarely listen to the radio anymore, and I never listen to stations that have a “format,” where some suit tells the serfs which buttons to push. Shuffle is fun once in a while, but it also results in jarring transitions between tracks that shouldn’t be played back to back. Being a DJ (a real DJ, not a droid on a “formatted” station) is a skilled profession, practically an art. Building a playlist that makes sense takes talent and experience and a real ear for music. Sadly, people who have those skills don’t have many opportunities to practice them anymore.
Anyone wanna bet how long this lame format lasts? I give it 18 months, tops.
Ed Bott 
I met a guy whose son got rich by buying up stations, then applying the latest market research to change the format of each station to what was projected to sell the most ads. We had a long discussion, and he never really got my point.
I asked how they picked their music. “The survey data.”
Don’t the DJs get to decide any of this? “Sure, as long as they play what’s on their list.”
Aren’t they interested in being different from all the other stations? “It doesn’t matter, because the survey tells them what songs their listeners want to hear.”
Why should I listen to this station? “Because the survey says you want to hear these songs.”
But I didn’t want to hear those songs, and I listened to that station once. Country music in Boston, great market research.
Most big radio stations here in the UK are available via means other than standard analogue radio – they’re all included on the various digital TV platforms (cable, satellite and terrestrial) and via terrestrial digital radio. Most also offer streams via the internet, and many let you listen to previously broadcasted shows on demand for up to a week after broadcasting – the BBC is a big proponent of this.
We don’t really have analogue satellite radio (i.e. XM and Sirius) like you guys do. Digital Radio seems to be the next big thing here.
Best of both worlds would be the huge playlist and limited commercials of Jack with a human DJ.
That’s what my local public radio station (WYEP) is like – except NO commercials.
FM radio is dead of multiple wounds to the foot. FM wrecked it own product by ruining the audio with too much compression (and subsequent distortion)to make the station sound “louder” on the dial, and by chaining commercials together in endless clusters. Not to mention the un-funny DJs.
Us older radio pros remember that this is how AM radio died, too.
All radio has to sell is -sound- and if the sound is crummy…then listeners will abandon the station.
i was a dj at a small market fm station here in texas. so i know a little about what i speak and i can say as a subscriber to satellite radio. their is no way that a commercial fm/am station can match the genres that are available on subscription radio. in the san antonio, tx area, where i live we have a lot of radio stations playing only pop, classical or you guessed it country. not only limited programing will kill fm radio but, what about those endless commercials that just seem to go on and on?
i am always in favor of keeping everything old, due to my advancing age, but, i agree that fm radio should die. either come up with better ways or be replaced. allthough i will say an fm station, close to the house, sounds as good or better then my satellite radio. it’s just those damn commercials they seem to go from actually getting the word out about a product to actually just being plain annoying. that will be the death of fm radio.
R.I.P. fm radio!