Music on the Radio
I listen to the radio, usually when I’m driving. The stations I tune into are sports talk radio and the CBC. As a Canucks fan I listen to local sports talk radio to get my fix of the Canucks and the sports world. I listen to the CBC for their interesting content and news. I rarely listen to music stations. I love music. I listen to it and I am a musician.
Why don’t I listen to music on the radio?
The main reason is because it’s bad. I don’t expect the songs on the radio to exactly meet my tastes and I don’t expect commercial radio stations to play deep cuts or unknown bands with small followings. I understand that commercial radio stations need to play familiar music to get listeners and money from advertisers. The problem is the lack of variety. I am a fan of rock music but why do the stations always play the same three Nirvana songs? The Rolling Stones have had an over fifty-year career but you wouldn’t know it by listening to the radio.
A lot of people to blame the lack of variety on Canadian content. Thirty five percent of music on the radio needs to be Canadian. There are many great Canadian bands and recording artist in the world, so why is it always Kim Mitchell, The Tragically Hip, Rush and Neil Young on classic rock stations. With the exception of Kim Mitchell, these are great artists, but some more variety wouldn’t hurt.
Radio stations are too cheap to pay royalties for more than a few dozen songs. So music radio listeners are stuck same songs over and over. It’s a shame, maybe if they did more people would listen, but I don’t think that will happen. I’ll stick to sports radio and the CBC.
