Not long ago I was travelling for business with a rental car and I had no way to get my iPod output into the stereo. After 15 minutes I was actually considering the risk of driving with headphones (and decided against it for my personal safety, I already felt at risk in my ultra-sub-mini-compact vehicle).
Reason #1 – Ads. There’s tons of them. This is the golden age of podcasting, there are very few there.
Reason #2 – Finite number of stations, finite choices. When’s the last time you heard a show about the best way to raise pigs or knit? Radio: every town in America has, the morning zoo, talk from the left and right, country, rap, classic rock, current rock, oldies and that’s it. No matter what your hobby, you can find something that you really want to learn about. And even though I am 100% podcast there’s lots of hollywood quality stuff through Audible (John Federico, thank me later).
Reason #3 – 60 GB, 9000 songs, my choice.
Reason #4 – If you are stuck waiting somewhere you can watch video on your iPod, kind of cool coming through 6 car speakers.
Bonus Reason: You may say “But John, in your simple-minded rant you forgot one thing – variety”, and you I say “See #3 and add Smart Playlist – Random” and check out my channels on gigadial – it’s great, subscribe to the feed and I’ll throw you random new podcasts to check out. The CAPOW channel covers marketing and business stuff, New England Podcasters is everything else for the general public, and the John Wall channel has everything that’s too nerdy, radical, edgy, or adult for the (somewhat) family friendly NE Casters channel.
My channel has some All-Star geek recordings right now that include Apple Founder Steve Wozniak, Joel from Joel on Software, and Business Gurus Clayton Christensen (the Innovator’s Dilemma) and Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point and Blink).
If you want just music then check out some folks doing some great stuff: Rock from Accident Hash, Hip-Hop from Julien, Chill with Anji Bee, and get your pirate Barry White style groove on with Suzy Chase.
By the way, anyone can add to those channels so if you have anything you’d like to share please add it.
Holy web bluntman, that’s a lot of links. Have a good weekend, The M Show will be out Sunday Night with some special guests…
3 replies on “Why Radio Sucks”
hey man, thanks for the love! obviously, i’m in love with much of the same shit you are. 🙂
here, here! btw, i love how julien and i are starting to get mentioned in the same breath on the podosphere. such nice company to keep. 😉 and cc! well, we both love that man.
John is also VP and marketeer for Wall Brothers INC a fledgling Organizational Management group specializing in Medical Systems. This group was started by his dad who recently retired after 40 years with GE & GD and his brother Jay who currently works at Berkeley in California.
Sorry for the plug John, all the best with “Ronin Marketeer” !!
Dad