Right now I’m listening to the radio. Yes, at my disposal I have iTunes with 24 days worth of songs, XM radio on TV, and Pandora, but I choose to listen to the radio, dealing with ads and DJs. Now the ads are annoying, but the DJs are sometimes interesting or at least, at times, funny.
Radio is a old, traditional medium, but, even in the light of the internet and television, that is extremely popular. Over 90% of the population listens to the radio at least once a week. People like the radio.
I don’t like the ads. But who likes ads? Regardless, a few are entertaining, and the rest are worth getting out of your chair to turn the dial to another station. I little moving is good for you. “Turn the dial?” you ask. Yep, I think a key part of the experience that is radio is dialing a station. Turning a big machined-metal knob, moving through the static interstitial, and hitting a station precisely (and in stereo!) is damn right satisfying. Analog is cool. You have to make a decision, get to take a break, and then you have to not be lazy and get up to do it again. I guess a part of it is that the moving around makes it a more ‘active’ experience for me.
I didn’t even mention navigating the stations, learning where to good ones are (for both music selection and reception quality), learning what type of music they play at different times of the day, and, at a precise moment, which station to be listening to as core parts of the radio experience. Say you’re listening to “Shaft” on the Oldies station. Turn the dial to see if the Classic Rock station is playing “Us and Them”? Are you satisfied with what you have?
(well you can just go to yes.com and get a real-time view of what is playing on basically any radio station in the country. awesome site + three-letter domain name = win.)
But, at last, what really makes the radio interesting is the fact that it’s a collective experience. A Collective Experience. In real-time, in the real-world, when you’re listening to the radio, you’re sharing an experience. Think the transitions from “In Bloom” to “Riders in the Storm” to “Highway for Hell” to, yes there’s more, “Black Dog” was jaw-droppingly brilliant? (It was.) Well, someone else ‘out there’ might have been lucky enough to have been listening at the same time and gone through the same ‘experience’ as you. Radio has such reach, that anytime you’re listening to a major radio station in a reasonably sized market, you’re sharing an experience with thousands, probably more, of people. That’s f&#&*%! cool.
