I am about to give up on terrestrial music radio permanently

[craziaskowboi]

I live in Georgia, in the greater Athens area. I can hear both Athens and Atlanta radio stations where I live. My favorite format is Active Rock, and I also enjoy pop music from the 1980s and 1990s. I was a fan of the Alternative format during the 1990s and 2000s, but not so much this decade. Based on this information alone, you can already see where I'm going, but let me give you a detailed timeline of my radio experience in the last 10 years:


October 2006: 96 Rock (Classic Rock) flips to Project 9-6-1 (Active Rock). Good news for me.

January 2008: 99X (Alternative) flips to Q100 (CHE), whose old frequency becomes Rock 100.5 (Classic Rock).

October 2009: Bulldog 100.1 (Active Rock) flips to Power 100.1 (CHR).

January 2011: Star 94 (Hot AC) introduces the "Big '90s Weekend." Good news for me.

May 2012: Star 94 discontinues the Big '90s Weekend.

August 2012: Project 9-6-1 (Active Rock) flips to Power 96.1 (CHR/Rhythmic).

September 2012: I start streaming 98.9 The Rock out of Kansas City whenever I'm at home. Good news for me.

October 2012: 92.9 Dave FM (Adult Alternative) flips to 92.9 The Game (Sports).

November 2013: Star 94 resurrects the Big '90s Weekend during holiday weekends.

January 2014: Bulldog 93.3 (Active Rock) goes on the air for the first time in Athens. Good news for me.

July 2015: Star 94 airs its final Big '90s Weekend, subsequently purging all 1990s music from its playlist.

November 2015: Bulldog 93.3 announces on their Facebook page that the owner received feedback from business owners in Athens that the station should focus more on 1970s and 1980s rock (including "light rock"), as if nobody in the Athens area could hear 97.1 The River (Classic Hits) loud and clear.

December 2015: Bulldog 93.3 flips from Classic Hits back to Active Rock after listeners revolt. Good news for me.

June 2016: 98.9 The Rock eliminates all current rock from their playlist, as well as "BEER!!!" by Psychostick, which was a staple of theirs on Friday afternoons, and focuses on rock from the 1970s-2000s.

July 2016: I discover Star 92.1 (Hot AC) in Myrtle Beach, which features its own Big '90s Weekend with a playlist larger than Star 94 ever had. Good news.

September 2016: After enjoying only two of their Big '90s Weekends, Star 92.1 flips to Energy 92.1 (CHR), subsequently purging all 1990s music from their playlist.

November 2016: Bulldog 93.3 starts playing nothing but Christmas music at midnight on Thanksgiving, and cryptically refers to "The New Sound Of Athens After Christmas" in some of its liners. After inquiring, the GM of the station told me that the owner "wants to take the station in a slightly different direction after Christmas." The owner already tried flipping the format once, so I fear that the Active Rock format is no more.


As it stands now, I do not have a single terrestrial Active Rock station to listen to locally, and Magic 102.1 (Adult Contemporary) and 103.7 Chuck FM (Variety Hits) are the only stations on which I can hear pop music from the 1980s and 1990s -- and the 1990s often get buried by the 1980s on both stations when they play older songs. I was a fan of the Classic City Countdown on Bulldog 93.3, which was a countdown of the top 33 Active Rock hits of the week that aired on Wednesday nights, but I've been told by the station GM that the show has been discontinued during the Christmas season, and its future status is uncertain. This leaves me with the Retro Pop Reunion, which I can hear on Saturday nights from 6PM-10PM and 10PM-2AM on Magic 102.1, or Saturday nights from 8PM-12AM on B98.5 if I visit friends in Atlanta during the weekend. There's also the occasional "Everything '80s Weekend" during holiday weekends on 103.7 Chuck FM. Otherwise, I have nothing to look forward to on local radio, other than Adele and The Chainsmokers being played on five different goddamn radio stations.

Having my favorite genres of music discarded from terrestrial radio is bad enough, but the suddenness of it all makes it even worse. I hate getting used to listening to radio stations that suddenly disappear out from under me. The only format flip that anybody even bothered to announce ahead of time was 92.9 Dave FM flipping to 92.9 The Game back in the fall of 2012. Otherwise, I've been blindsided by every change that's been made, and most of the changes have been for the worse, leaving me to scramble for a solution. I've tried my damnedest to adapt. I've streamed Active Rock stations in Kansas City and Hot AC stations in Myrtle Beach whenever I've wanted to listen to certain music or certain weekend themes at home. Bulldog 93.3 became my favorite preset in the truck once I discovered it. But now all I'm left with are one Saturday night radio show, one occasional holiday weekend theme that only includes one of the two "classic pop" decades that I enjoy, and an Active Rock station in a faraway city that's cut all music from this decade out of its playlist.

I've reached my wit's end. You cannot tell me that Active Rock deserves to die if Octane has the second-most fans of any SiriusXM music channel (303,800). Only The Highway (624,454) has more, and Electro, the channel with the third-most fans, is more than 100,000 behind (188,059). It's painfully obvious that there are lots of Active Rock fans who are not being adequately served by terrestrial radio. And billing seems like a lame excuse, honestly, because if catering to people who earn less than the national median household income was so unprofitable, then Dollar General wouldn't be everywhere. As for the 1990s, only '80s On 8 (52,756) has more Facebook fans of any decadal SiriusXM channel than '90s On 9 (32,887). All the rest of them -- '60s On 6 (26,386), '70s On 7 (24,760), '40s Junction (11,635), Pop2K (10,834) and '50s on 5 (4,363) -- lag behind. Even Hits 1 (146,966) has less than half the fans of Octane. There is a market for the music I like, goddamn it! As far as I'm concerned, if I can hear Adele and The Chainsmokers on five different terrestrial radio stations, but I can't hear Disturbed on even one, then that's a market failure. Terrestrial radio has gone against me more often than not in the last 10 years, so aside from the Retro Pop Reunion and the local sports talk radio station, I'm done with it.

I don't have much money right now, so I've asked my father for a dedicated home satellite radio and SiriusXM subscription for Christmas. It won't solve the problem of what to listen to in my truck, but at least it's a start.

[EvanJ]

Earlier in the 2000s, the Radio and Records panel of the biggest 140 markets had about 50 Active Rock stations if I remember correctly. I don't know how to compare that to now. Occasionally somebody posts the Mediabase panels here.

I tried looking for a list of Active Rock stations, and radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/page?p=formats lists 52 formats (including music and talk) but not Active Rock. I looked for if they called it "Hard Rock" or "Metal" instead, but those terms aren't listed either. The closest formats listed to Active Rock are "Alternative" and "Rock." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Radio_formats lists 120 radio formats and networks, and doesn't list Active Rock either.

[ilikemusic]

I stopped listening to terrestrial radio in 2015... that year... was the final straw

[skizzo]

Imagine wanting to listen to a dance station in America. Now that's tough.

[J. Rob]

I listen to Hip Hop and R&B.....I gave up on terrestrial radio back around 2007.

[aerodynamite]

Dec 19, 2016 11:51:24 GMT -5 skizzo said:

Imagine wanting to listen to a dance station in America. Now that's tough.

I used to listen to 106.7 in Dallas back when it was a dance station in '02-'04. At the time, it was the only station I would play on a regular basis. After it switched to a different format in '05, I pretty much gave up terrestrial radio.

When I started listening to the radio again in '10-'12, I found online streams from other markets (including Z 103.5, a dance station in Toronto that I especially loved) because the local stations here in Dallas...well, they didn't meet my needs, to put it nicely. I swear, Dallas stations of all formats have the worst selection of anywhere, especially if you crave variety like I do.

As of now, I mostly use streaming and internet radio since I'd like to expand my horizons beyond what terrestrial radio can offer me. 

[craziaskowboi]

Dec 10, 2016 17:43:53 GMT -5 EvanJ said:

Earlier in the 2000s, the Radio and Records panel of the biggest 140 markets had about 50 Active Rock stations if I remember correctly. I don't know how to compare that to now. Occasionally somebody posts the Mediabase panels here.

I tried looking for a list of Active Rock stations, and radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/page?p=formats lists 52 formats (including music and talk) but not Active Rock. I looked for if they called it "Hard Rock" or "Metal" instead, but those terms aren't listed either. The closest formats listed to Active Rock are "Alternative" and "Rock." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Radio_formats lists 120 radio formats and networks, and doesn't list Active Rock either.

Of the 51 metropolitan areas (not media markets) with at least 1,000,000 population, 24 of them have Active Rock stations directly serving them, and two more have Active Rock rimshots that move the needle. There are Active Rock stations directly serving Dallas/Fort Worth, Philadelphia, Detroit, Seattle, Phoenix, Minneapolis/St. Paul, San Diego, Denver, Tampa, Baltimore, San Antonio, Sacramento, Cincinnati, Las Vegas, Cleveland, Orlando, Kansas City, Nashville, Virginia Beach/Norfolk, New Orleans, Jacksonville, Oklahoma City, Buffalo and Birmingham. Of these metropolitan areas, Active Rock stations consistently achieve top-10 ratings in Philadelphia, Detroit, Seattle, Phoenix, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Baltimore, San Antonio, Sacramento, Cincinnati, Las Vegas, Cleveland, Orlando, Kansas City, Virginia Beach/Norfolk, New Orleans, Oklahoma City and Buffalo. Chicago and Boston have Active Rock rimshots that show up on local Arbitron ratings.