Radio Survivor

As someone who dislikes long commercial breaks and hearing the same songs over and over on the radio, I’ve always had an interest in finding alternative ways to discover new music. Since it has now been a few years since I began this quest, I’ve decided to list some possible alternatives to “mainstream” radio (in no particular order).

Internet Radio

I absolutely love the concept of Internet radio, although my experience has admittedly been limited to Pandora Radio and Last.fm.  Summarized, they’re customizable radio with limited commercials (that you can mute if you feel the need). Awesome, yes?

Since I’m studying multiple languages for graduate school, I’m constantly searching for what I consider to be “good” music from other countries in an attempt to assist with my learning process by increasing my exposure. To test the effectiveness of these websites to help with this goal, I searched both websites for three different bands that perform in three different languages: a Japanese metal band named Dir en Grey, a German band named Wir sind Helden (We Are Heroes), and a French artist named Yelle.

I was thoroughly impressed by the fact that Last.fm not only had each group that I searched for but also managed to remain in the same genre and, almost always, the same language, including a limited amount of similar music in English. Pandora appears to be less conducive to expanding one’s international musical horizons, failing to provide any music for Wir Sind Helden and initially returning only English results.

That said, here are some general notes: I like that Last.fm provides you with a list of recent songs and radio stations while Pandora only allows you to look at recently played songs for a currently playing radio station (the history is cleared if you switch). I was  surprised to discover that Last.fm allows you to maintain a “library” of tracks that you’ve listened to, although I suppose the trade off is that users are unable to pause (as far as I can tell) songs (the alternative is to leave the radio station) and can only structure their stations around entire bands as opposed to both songs and bands (Pandora allows both options). I’m more familiar with Pandora, which is probably why I prefer its layout. I also like having the option of structuring a station around a song as opposed to an entire band because occasionally you stumble upon those amazing songs from, unfortunately, horrible albums that you really don’t need to subject your ears to again (Ex: Matt and Kim’s “Daylight” and most music from the ’80s, like this). (more…)

The Slacker mobile radio team sent us a press release this morning saying the service is now available in Canada. “Turning Canada on to personal radio has been some time in the making, and we are proud to unveil our Canadian Slacker Radio experience,” declared Slacker marketing Veep Jonathan Sasse in the  statement. “Whether it’s from the web or a smartphone, Slacker takes the work out of listening to your favorite music wherever you want.”

And the release continues:

“Canadian music fans will have access to the free Slacker Basic Radio for up to 30 days. After 30 days, they can upgrade to Slacker Radio Plus, featuring all the same great benefits of Slacker Basic Radio along with station caching for supported mobile devices, ad-free listening, complete song lyrics*, unlimited song skipping, song requests and more. Station caching enables mobile listeners to store their personal stations on selected smartphones for listening anywhere, anytime, uninterrupted.

Listeners can store a station by simply selecting “Cache Station” from within the supported app. The station can then be downloaded via Wi-Fi, over USB or through the cellular network. Cached stations are stored on the smartphone and can be accessed on planes, subways and everywhere in between requiring minimal battery usage and eliminating the need to access the mobile carrier network to play music.”

One question we had about the statement. It calls Slacker “the first personal radio experience to service Canada.” Hey Canadians, is that the case? We know that you can’t get Pandora up there (except maybe by proxy). What about last.fm? Here’s a comment from a disgruntled Canadian. What are the  availabilities?   Send us your comments.

I am one of those music Junkies with over 25,000 songs in my music library at home. When I sit down on my computer, I know exactly what I want to hear.  But the iPhone  changed that. It offered me radio options that I’d never considered before. Here are my favorites.

Pandora Radio

There is a reason why Time Magazine ranked Pandora among the Top 10 iPhone applications.  It’s awesome. If you are familiar with Pandora Radio then you already know what I am talking about. Its service has matching algorithms that allow users to listen to a completely customized radio service for free. I have found countless new music, artists and songs that are now a permanent mainstay in my iPod thanks to Pandora Radio.

In fact, I find the iPhone application is actually easier and more pleasant to use than their full online version. Pandora’s interface for the iPhone is simple and easy. It includes all the features their full website has to offer on a 3.5 inch screen. The advantages are that the advertisements are so small, so it’s hard to read them. You can even close the ad windows right within the application. But the elegant and simple interface is not why Pandora on the iPhone is truly great, it’s because the iPhone allows Pandora to be mobile.  Compared to my huge iTunes at home, my tiny eight gig iPhone seems downright claustrophobic. Sometimes I want something new and Pandora lets me do that wherever I am (barring the chance of spotty AT&T service). When I am walking to class, at the gym, or riding the bus home I can enjoy something new and maybe find my next favorite artist or song. (more…)

As I said in my introduction to our subjective and opinionated review of radio in the 2000s, I still think it was darn near impossible to predict how the medium of radio would end up at the beginning of 2010. Sure, the seeds for satellite radio, HD radio, low-power FM, internet radio and MP3s were already planted by the turn of the century. But home broadband–nevermind wireless or mobile–was a relatively exclusive luxury. MP3 players were lucky to sport enough memory to hold about a hundred minutes of music and weren’t integrated into cell phones. Satellites for Sirius and XM were launched, and HD Radio was being experimented with, but no stations were on the air. Clear Channel was flying high for more than $90 a share.

Anyone taking a broad view of the radio industry in 2000 could certainly see a lot of balls being thrust up into to the air, but it would have taken a psychic to predict where they would land. Nevertheless, for all of the churn we can say very safely that audio-focused content is alive and well.

It’s become clear to me that we Radio Survivors do consider radio to be greater than just the traditional electromagnetic broadcast medium. While we included the RF-based college radio, pubic radio, LPFM, HD Radio and satellite radio in our review, we also touched upon internet radio, Pandora and digital downloads. I believe we are first and foremost fans of terrestrial broadcast radio, but that does not cause us to ignore or discount new audio media. Nor does it cause it us to claim that they are not, in essence, radio services.

The homogenization and delocalization of the broadcast dial caused listeners to seek alternative places to hear more interesting and diverse content. At the same time the popularity of MP3 players and Pandora shows that people were also looking for customization.
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It’s difficult for me to write about the Internet radio phenomenon without disclosing my personal investment in the subject. I listen to the Pandora radio service most every day that I work at my computer. Pandora has saved classical music radio for me, and, I’ll bet, for tens of thousands of others.

I love classic music and all its historical eras. First it was the music of God, then of the Enlightenment, then of romantic nationalism, then of workers’ revolutions, and the complex multitude of twentieth century identities. But my local “classical” FM station here in San Francisco, KDFC-FM, stripped all of that out of the genre, save Vivaldi concertos in the morning and Tchaikovsky waltzes in the afternoon. The signal’s motto says it all: Everybody Remain Calm. As if the purpose of classical music was ever to calm you down, or keep you company in an elevator.

I don’t want to single KDFC out. Tell me of a big signal, commercial classical FM radio station in the United States that plays late Beethoven string quartets or a Bartok piano concerto at 2 pm in the afternoon. If you can, I’ll write a blog post singing your praises.

Pandora, which began operations in the summer of 2005, changed all that. It taps into a huge digital music library called the Music Genome Project. Pandora’s online listening program doesn’t allow you to pick and choose which specific songs you’d like to hear, but it permits you to create performer, composer, or genre channels that semi-randomly expose you to the compositions and performances you crave.

So, for example, I’ve got a Pandora channel called “Moritz Moszkowski,” named after the largely forgotten late-19th century virtuoso pianist. I can’t pick Moszkowski pieces at will, or press a rewind button to hear the tune again. But Pandora gives me something better than that. Its database searches for Moszkowski’s historical colleagues and plays me them as well: Paderewski, Saint-Saens, Brahms, Grieg, Chaminade, Faure, and others. The channel also gives me the option of adding other composers to the mix. (more…)

Congress is pushing for net neutrality. The Federal Communications Commission is pushing for net neutrality. A gazillion advocacy groups, companies, or trade associations are pushing for (or against) net neutrality and giving the FCC tons of free advice on how to write up its National Broadband Plan. They file comments with the agency every week: Comcast, Skype, AT&T, Microsoft, Google, just to name a few of the most active players, debating tricky questions like bandwidth caps, device openness, and network management practices.

Curiously absent from this discussion, however, are the new cutting edge audio services that are redefining radio: Pandora, Slacker, live365, AccuRadio, and last.fm. These players rarely engage the net neutrality/broadband debate, even though how the big ISPs run their networks will impact what they do as much as they’ve affected video and file sharing. As a consequence, the FCC’s horde of workshops, hearings, and reports on its National Broadband Plan hardly mention Internet radio at all. Take a look at the Commission’ list of Internet workshops. Not one on this crucial subject.

Everybody knows that Internet radio will depend on a neutral, open deviced ‘Net just as much any other sector of the media. ISP interference and exclusive handset deals could make or break independent streaming services, or at least limit their ability to grow.

But when the big Internet radio players do speak up about policy, it’s always about something else. Pandora supports the Performance Rights Act—that proposed law which would require over-the-air radio stations to pay performance royalties to musicians. Last.fm is owned by CBS Radio, which takes little interest in how the regulatory landscape might affect its new acquisition. CBS’s filings with the FCC are about trying to convince the agency not to strengthen its localism rules or crack down on embedded advertising.

As for the rest of the pack: mum’s the word, it seems. But why? My guess is that the quality of broadband here in the United States has been adequate to the task of helping Internet radio grow, and nobody wants to make any unnecessary enemies. And so Internet radio holds its peace and lets others do the talking on this crucial question.

That’s just my thesis, of course. Radio Survivor readers are welcome to submit theirs’.

If you are looking for the bright spot in radio’s future, it’s streaming from a digital platform. The Radio Advertising Bureau’s report for this year’s second fiscal quarter makes this abundantly clear. Local and national over-the-air radio saw a 25% drop in revenue, while digital saw a ten percent boost. Digital radio’s revenue from advertising has grown from $180 million in 2007 to $298 million this year. And the Bureau projects continued growth to $908 million in 2013.

That’s in comparison to over-the-air radio, which lost almost a quarter of a billion in revenue in Q2. The Bureau’s analysis tries to put a brave spin on this, comparing that drop to Q1, when terrestrial truly and spectacularly tanked, revenue wise, declining by over half a billion bucks. “We are most likely past the Q1 low point for Radio revenues and are now on the rebound,” declared Jeff Haley, RAB’s President and CEO.

But the contrast between digital and terrestrial is pretty hard to ignore. “Digital will be an increasingly important sector as Radio continues to evolve into a cross-platform medium,” the report flatly notes. It’s unclear, however, to what degree terrestrial radio will participate in this cross platformness.

Abandoned in large part by the automobile industry, its most faithful remaining advertisers are now cheapo restaurants and fast food joints like Arbys, Dunkin Donuts, Romano’s Macaroni Grill, and Subway. “Even while they’re tightening their belts, Americans still want to reward themselves with a restaurant meal,” the report notes.

Coming in second to this slender reed are advertisers whose products will,  ironically, cause  consumers to listen to less terrestrial radio. AT&T and Verizon are pushing cell phone services hard on radio, RAB says, albeit less than in better times.  “Offsetting cutbacks by the two titans, a number of smaller carriers stepped up their spending to help buoy the category in Q2: Qwest Communications (+57%), Leap Wireless (+44%), Boost Mobile (+34%), US Cellular (+26%), and Metro PCS (+19%).”

All this, of course, will help terrestrial radio listeners discover apps like Slacker, Pandora, Last.fm, and who knows what else at an ever faster rate. It’s difficult to see how terrestrial radio is going to recover from this recession in any condition comparable to its recent past.