[miah_]

Clearchannel (which became IheartRadio) owns most radio stations (>850) in the US. They fired hundreds of DJ's in ~2011.

https://archive.nytimes.com/mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2...

When I was a kid in the 1980's I used to call the DJ and request songs A LOT. When I was a teen I used to call in to win contests. Now when I listen to a 'I<3Radio' station in the garage, its clear all the DJ segments are pre-recorded and everything is automated. Its all soundbites. Its all garbage. Its all advertisements. Its the same ~30 songs on rotation.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

In the early 80's living in Brooklyn, I would tune into WKTU at 6:00PM every night just to hear

"Hello. This is Rosko. WKTU, New York." And then he'd segue into "Always and Forever" by Heatwave.

It was so scripted that at one point I started listening closely to see if it was recorded, but there were enough intonation and pacing changes that it was obvious he was doing it live.

Haven't lived in NYC in over 30 years but I miss that station.

[musicale]

I guess Clearchannel/IheartRadio is sort of a private equity "success" story because it is still operating.

[goosejuice]

Sure but there's so many internet and college radio stations out there. Even with mainstream consolidation I would find it surprising that there are less overall now than ever before.

I mean just look at boiler room and club culture in general. The amount of tastemaking DJs out there is pretty vast.

[Retric]

Internet DJ’s can’t feed off each other to produce regional music. It’s all one big blob available anywhere which drowns diversity in a sea of mediocrity.

College radio stations aren’t dramatically increasing to make up for the vast consolidation that removed something like 80-90% of radio DJ’s.

40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s flowed into each other but the stuff was all very distinct in a way that 2000’s vs 2010’s isn’t.