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Love it or hate it, truckers say they can’t stop listening to public radio
- ourmandave 9y ago“And I said, ‘Well, so why don’t you stop listening?’” Murphy continued. “And he says, ‘I can’t, because it’s the only station that will go on mile after mile and I can pick it up again.’” Just drove from IA to MI and it's true. Between 90.3 and 92.7 FM there's always an NPR station waiting. Or I could just download their app and listen anywhere / anytime. http://www.npr.org/about/products/npr-one/ http://www.npr.org/about/products/npr-one/
- kazinator 9y agoIt occurs to me that a FM radio should be capable of automatically doing this hand-off, thanks to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Data_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Data_System If a station signal goes weak, the radio could scan the FM stations for another station which is known to broadcast the same signal (according to, say, an internal cross-matching database, or some other means).
- omnibrain 9y agoMy car radio (in Germany, german car) does this.
- dghughes 9y agoIn Canada CBC Radio is the public broadcaster sort of a cross between the BBC and NPR. There are multiple stations from coast to coast and I think a person could hop from one to the other but it would have to be done manually not automatically. Quebec may be the wildcard but there may be a CBC English station there too, I think? I drove quite a bit when I was in my teens and 20s when I worked for a coin-op video game/grey area slot machines. You get tired listening to music even if you like it at first your favourite song ten times in a row is ugh. But interesting talk radio is better it's food for the mind. Now with satellite and the Internet it's different. It was such a subtle change I don't think it was noticed how radio died and was replaced by the Internet and satellite radio.
- AndrewKemendo 9y agoIt certainly can, however OTA radio is very localized - to the city usually, by tradition - so it wouldn't make much sense to build such a network. NPR is probably the only radio network that could do a common band cross country, but even then, NPR just syndicates itself to other stations so it's not really in their interest to do so.
- kuschku 9y agoIn the US, yes. In many other places you can get lots of channels that exist over entire countries, and actually support this kind of automated handover.
- freehunter 9y agoThis is quickly changing. The Brew is the same everywhere, Nash FM is the same everywhere, and I'm pretty sure you can get Sixx Sense or Free Beer and Hot Wings in basically every market. Clear Channel/I Heart Radio is pushing hard to make every radio station the same across the country.
- AndrewKemendo 9y agoVery interesting thanks. I haven't been involved in FM radio since 2008 so I've been a bit out of the loop.
- kbenson 9y ago> I'm pretty sure you can get Sixx Sense or Free Beer and Hot Wings in basically every market I had never heard of any of those, so I decided to look them up. Sixx Sense, nearest station is in Sacramento. about 70 miles as the crow flies, and over some small mountains (large hills, really). Next closest station is ~110 miles in Modesto. They look to actually hit the central corridor fairly well, just not the coast. Free Beer and Hot Wings (ha, I first through this was two different stations), doesn't even have a station carrying them in CA.
- Brendinooo 9y agoThere's a network called K-Love that broadcasts contemporary Christian music across the United States[1]. It's the same programming in every market, apart from the occasional regional flavor in advertising and/or pledge drives. I didn't search to confirm this, but I'm pretty sure that federal regulations prevent fully syndicated radio stations across markets, but they don't apply to nonprofits. That's why you'll have an iHeartRadio Top 40 station in every metropolitan area but they all have their own talent. [1]: http://www.klove.com/music/radio-stations/radio-station-download/ http://www.klove.com/music/radio-stations/radio-station-down...
- kalleboo 9y agoThat's how it works in Europe where RDS is widely deployed. Even for the regionalized channels where the programming may vary a little your radio will keep you in the network.
- pawelk 9y agoI live in Poland. Every car radio I have ever owned did this, and every station that is available on more than a single frequency (that I'm aware of) can be followed using RDS. I can also listen to a CD or other media [1] and let it scan for traffic news in the background, it switches to any station that currently airs traffic news. It held true on road trips to other European countries. [1] I rarely do this, for me listening to radio is an integral part of driving. Especially when I have commuted to/from work, I was able to tell if I'm running late based on what segment has been airing when driving past particular intersection or landmark.
- mickronome 9y agoYeah RDS does that, and it can do a lot more with proper metadata. In Sweden it has been running with at least basic functions - traffic announcements, channel following, and station names - since 1990.
- dfox 9y agoAlso new car radios seem to use SDR for FM reception and simply downconvert whole FM band to 20MHz wide IF and sample that with ADC and then do all the FM demodulation in software. This causes the radio to simply known all stations that are available and have RDS metadata (on VW's radios pressing the scroll knob in the radio screen gets you menu of visible stations that is shown essentially instantly) and to be able to do such handoff without any scanning essentially instantly. The handoff is so fast that it gets very annoying when the transmitters involved have different delay (at least in Europe radio stations tend to compensate for this by introducing delays on their end so the whole network is synchronized) or when it happens in middle of advertisement (which are usually different for each transmitter). When either of these annoying effects happen you can hear that the radio is perfectly willing and capable of switching the transmitter several times per second.
- wyldfire 9y agoThe NPR app was pretty good when I first used it (~2014? Whenever they started advertising it on-air). But lately it seems like it gets really messed up during playback: arbitrarily rewinding back to earlier point within the current show, e.g. When that happens, the cue/seek mechanism is totally useless and doesn't match the show's playback at all. It's rarely a problem for 3-4 minute news segments of ME, ATC, etc. It's totally unbearable for "Ask Me Another", "Wait, wait, don't tell me...", etc.
- hprotagonist 9y agoLooking for a "bubble-free" media venue? Not a bad place to start.
- taneq 9y agoIt'd make sense that non-interactive mass media such as a radio broadcast would be less prone to the filter-bubble effect. For one, it's not personalized (other than you picking the station). For two, the fact that most listeners can't respond means that there's no tight feedback loop reinforcing and amplifying the demographic's positions.
- tomcam 9y agoYour politics clearly lean left. I emphatically disagree with your assessment. Not surprisingly, I am center right/libertarian.
- SomeStupidPoint 9y agoIs there a "right-wing NPR"?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- vermontdevil 9y agoRush Limbaugh
- SomeStupidPoint 9y agoIf you can't tell the difference between NPR (on average) and Limbaugh, you've been huffing too much bias.
- MBCook 9y agoThat doesn't seem like a very constructive reply. I'd say AM talk radio is probably the closest thing there is to a conservative NPR.
- codingdave 9y ago> it’s the only station that will go on mile after mile and I can pick it up again. I can vouch for that -- I just went on a road trip to visit all the state parks in Utah, and believe me, once you get out of Salt Lake, your choices are NPR, country music, or static. I listened to a lot of NPR.
- MBCook 9y agoI distinctly remember being on the long drive leaving my grandparents in Texas to go back north when Bob Hope died. For very large chunks of that drive there was nothing we could pick up at all except for NPR. And because it had just happened at the top and bottom and half of every hour they were talking about it and playing a little clips and the shows that were on may have been about him. Nothing but hearing the same small amount of programming about his death for hours and hours and hours. I normally love NPR but obviously it became too much. However I do get why truckers like satellite radio. To be able to listen to a station without it fading out, or to be able to CHOOSE another station no matter where you are…
- iaabtpbtpnn 9y agoRegarding satellite radio, it's not quite "no matter where". My car has Sirius XM and I like it, but when I'm driving through the forests of the Santa Cruz mountains, it cuts out so frequently that I just turn it off. But as long as the view to the sky is clear, it works great.
- forapurpose 9y ago> Aside from the content, according to Murphy, drivers like NPR for the continuity. They can keep listening to the same programs from state to state. Why don't truckers use satellite radio? They could listen to the same programs anywhere in the (U.S.? World?).
- kbos87 9y agoIf you spend any time listening to satellite radio, it's pretty clear that they do - I'd say 70%+ of the callers to talk shows on SiriusXM are truckers. (Though they could be over-represented amongst those likely to call in, it's clear they make up a significant portion of the subscriber base.)
- techsupporter 9y agoI have several truckers in my family. A couple of them do subscribe to SiriusXM but the rest don't because it's expensive relative to what they get out of it. One cousin bought a lifetime XM subscription back in...2009? I think...and paid the $99 to upgrade it to "Lifetime Premium" or some such. He's had the same radio, a SiriusXM Edge, for the past 7 years and, according to him, "it's the best payback I've gotten except for that divorce lawyer." (He had a messy divorce...)
- shagie 9y agoI suspect many do. Just that this isn't a story about them. As to the coverage: North American only. There is coverage in Canada and Puerto Rico. The XM satellite are geostationary, the Sirius satellites are in a highly elliptical "tundra orbit" where they use apogee dwell over North America. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tundra_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tundra_orbit ) SiriusXM is now only using the geostationary satellites.
- nwatson 9y agoI listen to a number of NPR podcasts and perhaps I'm misremembering but it seems there's an uptick in the past few years of interviewing and discussing the lives of just "regular folks", people who work blue-collar jobs, people with conservative religious backgrounds, etc., ... and not in a disparaging way. But ... Fresh Air with Terry Gross still largely wanders the fields of the cultural left with nary a nod to alternative viewpoints.
- gozur88 9y agoUgh. I can't stand Terry Gross. They should call it "Terry Gross Talks About Her Feelings While Interesting Guests Listen And Wonder What They're Doing There."
- weirdstuff 9y agoYeah, Fresh Air/Terry Gross is pretty caught up in her own bubble, if you ask me. She gets pretty feisty when guests challenge her from time to time, which I enjoy. (Good listening when that happens!)
- JshWright 9y agoShe gets 'feisty' when guests disagree with her political views, and fawns all over guests age agrees with... I'm a huge NPR fan (I literally sat in my car crying during Diane Rehm's final sign off), but I really can't take Terry Gross...
- stevenwoo 9y agoDid you hear the Gene Simmons interview?
- dredmorbius 9y agoContrast her to any of the Right-Wing talk programmes, where an "opposition" guest can't get a word in edgewise. Gross does not berate her guests. She can and does ask tough questions, but she's not emotionally aggressive. Classic instance is her interview of O'Reilly, where he cut the mic and left the interview. There are lots of online mentions of this, though I'm not sure the episode itself is. See: http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/terry-gross-soothingly-disses-bill-oreilly-watch-w497312 http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/terry-gross-soothingly-d... http://www.npr.org/yourturn/ombudsman/2003/031015.html http://www.npr.org/yourturn/ombudsman/2003/031015.html http://www.metafilter.com/28827/Terry-Gross-vs-Bill-OReilly http://www.metafilter.com/28827/Terry-Gross-vs-Bill-OReilly (Her interviews are almost never in-studio, so guests are typically remote, as in this case.) At the same time, it's quite obvious that Gross is a massive fan of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, to the point of schoolgirl crush. I find it endearingly charming.
- sparcpile 9y agoBoth XM and Sirius before they merged had a big following among truckers. Even after the merger, they still have shows and channels tailored to them. The big reason was that could listen to the same channels across the country.
- throwaway2016a 9y agoI love NPR. My wife makes fun of me because sometimes I sit in the car with the battery / radio on after I park just to hear a story finish. New Hampshire Public radio has a lot of local news and features too, which I can't hear anywhere else. I'm sure other markets are the same. You can get it on Alexa too because most of the shows are also podcasts which is also great. I've also heard a lot from my conservative friends that NPR is too liberal but to be honest, I haven't seen that at all. The more entertainment like programs like "Wait Wait" do sometimes have liberal jokes but I think anyone who can take a joke would laugh at them even if they are conservative.[1] [1] I'm a Libertarian and thus social liberal and economically conservative which puts me in the great position of being able to laugh at jokes at the expense of either of the two major parties.
- abrowne 9y ago> Libertarian and thus social conservative and economically liberal Isn't that the opposite of a libertarian?
- barsonme 9y ago_Probably_ just a typo, imo. Then again, I've never found two libertarians who could agree on what being libertarian actually means, so maybe not.
- astrodust 9y agoDoesn't libertarian mean whatever the hell you want it to be because libertarian?
- ryandrake 9y agoFor quite a while recently, Libertarian meant "Embarrassed Republican Who Doesn't Want To Admit He Votes Republican Every Election Even Though He Swears He Doesn't Like Either Candidate"
- 9y ago
- lhuser123 9y agoThere are many areas where instead, you only find stations of the conservative media. IMO the article doesn't tell the whole story.
- averagewall 9y agoConservative media doesn't have a monopoly on criticizing scientists since the Damore incident.
- cabaalis 9y agoAre these two groups above all reproach?
- lhuser123 9y agoI apologize. Just so happens that while reading the article, it reminded so many times I experienced the opposite, and had to listen to some, not very friendly radio hosts.
- chiefalchemist 9y agoSure. But truckers are gonna be the first to go once autonomous vehicles are mainstream.
- ilamont 9y agoSurprised that more truckers haven't discovered podcasts.
- tomcam 9y agoWhere on earth did that comment come from? How stupid do you think truckers are? The article didn't mention podcasts. News flash: Truckers also enjoy 21st century technology.
- freehunter 9y agoI hope you can take a step back and realize how rude your comment is.
- DaniloDias 9y agoIs it possible that the comment is actually a dig at the quality of the article? I wouldn't assume it to be a rude comment.
- freehunter 9y agoIt sounds very rude, there's no other way to read it when someone says "newsflash" or "how stupid do you think they are". No where did the parent imply truckers don't use 21st century technology, they just mentioned another option that hadn't been discussed in the article. I see this here all the time, someone leaves a very rude comment and then they or someone else argues that it might not have been intended as being rude, but there are certain words and phrases that, any time you use them, you should be aware that they will always be interpreted as a rude remark. "newsflash" is one of them. "How stupid do you think... is" is another. Words have meanings and when you use them you should understand how someone else is going to read those words. That comment was intentionally rude, for absolutely no good reason.
- albedoa 9y agoIf you read his other comments it's clear that he's not doing a bit. That is just who he is.
- jrcii 9y agoFuck NPR liberal propaganda bullshit
- fourmii 9y agoA couple of years ago, I took my family on a road trip starting from Phoenix and ended up in SF. We drove north from Phoenix and hit a few of the amazing parks including Yellowstone and then west to Portland and then south to SF. And public radio was part of the fun for us. Aside from our beloved NPR, I loved how the only stations we could get gave us an insight on who probably lived in the areas we were driving through. I never really liked country music, but on that trip, I grew to actually appreciate it. Not to mention the number of new songs and artists we were able to discover. Some of those songs we now associate with the various places along the way.
- bluetwo 9y agoWife used to make fun of me. Now she is adicted.
- baursak 9y agoAs much as I like NPR, my politics have slowly drifted left over the years, and it's amazing how differently the same shows and hosts now sound to me through a more critical filter. To see what I mean, I recommend browsing through https://twitter.com/npr_watch https://twitter.com/npr_watch (not my account, and I'm not affiliated in any way).
- colordrops 9y agoI would consider myself a progressive, and yet I find NPR to be a propaganda mouthpiece for the left. It seems that every other story is pushing some identity politics agenda with a puff piece for some liberal politician or a slam against some conservative politician, or a heart to heart interview with a transgender immigrant homeless playwright. I agree with the sentiment and the politics, but I disagree with the method, claiming lack of bias while clearly not being neutral. In fact during the last presidential campaign they went so far as to take up a Fox News style slogan, "No Slant, No Rant". They also decided to remove the comments section permanently when even the majority of liberal commenters were slamming Hillary, NPR's darling candidate.
- r00fus 9y agoSounds like NPR is corporatist and part of the military industrial complex. They were pushing war in the lead up to Iraq War 2. Note: Hillary was for the war, too. She's as hawkish as McCain.
- colordrops 9y agoWhenever there's a big event that requires public support, they definitely do their part to push a particular choice. I also remember clearly NPR beating the war drum for war with Iraq. BBC too.
- r00fus 9y agoThis is why I support stations like KPFA [1], even though I don't support all their viewpoints. Helps me keep my corporatist-bias radar in check. [1] https://kpfa.org https://kpfa.org
- SoulMan 9y agoWonder if AM is covered everywhere throughout the country . Here in India radio in trucks was there for a very short period of time till side loaded cassettes I, CDnd side loaded MP3 took over. I think we never had great "talk" content.Even in 2017 I tune to BBC1 , world service and VOA in my car via internet but I get mocked a lot. Guess no one else does it. People here are used to side loaded MP3 music and not so intellectual Bollywood FM radio.
- fencepost 9y agoThere are some "clear channel" (now "Class A") AM stations that have huge listening areas particularly at night. These are distinct from Clear Channel the company. These stations mostly broadcast at 50kw in the USA and have a bunch of added protections such as distant AM stations on the same frequency having to reduce their broadcast power at night. More info: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear-channel_station https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear-channel_station There's really not much about it in the article, but my impression growing up in Chicago (which has at least 5, currently 2 sports, 2 talk and 1 news) was that part of their role was also to be emergency information destinations.
- KKKKkkkk1 9y agoYeah, NPR is great. I'm a daily listener. But you have to wonder. What if there were no NPR, might it be that we'd have high quality commercial talk radio instead? And would it cost as much to produce as NPR does?
- irishasaurus 9y agoSwitch to AM radio and you'll have your answer.
- wyldfire 9y ago> What if there were no NPR, might it be that we'd have high quality commercial talk radio instead? Why would that be? If not for the competition with NPR's programming, you mean? BTW talk radio is no competition for news radio. I don't care for talk radio at all. Facts about global events and sprinkle in a few human interest stories, that's just fine. NPR produces some talk radio shows but most public radio stations air them when no one's listening. But if you meant commercial news radio, then yeah, maybe we would have more CNN, FOX, etc produced news radio if we had less NPR or more spectrum.
- cool-RR 9y agoToday I learned: If you start a sentence with "Love it or hate it," it instills a temporary feeling in the reader that he cares about the thing you were saying.
- lsdafjklsd 9y agomy dad is a fox news republican, a few years back we were driving for 5 hours and were listening to npr. he was basically waiting for the overt liberal bias, but instead we listened to a bunch of fascinating stories and interesting shows about a variety of topics. I read somewhere that npr isn't liberally biased, but their fan base is mostly liberal, because liberals tend to prefer news that has no bias. It's also not loud and obnoxious, which they like.
- colordrops 9y ago> I read somewhere that npr isn't liberally biased, but their fan base is mostly liberal, because liberals tend to prefer news that has no bias. You don't need to "read somewhere" about whether a news source is biased. You just need to read news across a spectrum of sources. And you will realize that NPR definitely has a liberal bias if you have enough breadth in your sources. I'm a far-left liberal but I'm not afraid to admit when a liberal news source is biased. Everyone loves to point out the obvious bias at Fox News and Breitbart and Drudge but then delude themselves that there are no liberally biased news sources.
- r00fus 9y agoFunny I remember when Cokie Roberts was pimping Bush during the 2004 elections. No, NPR's leadership since about the mid-nineties (at least) has been aligned with big business - they are part of the media elite, who collectively, despite the "liberal media" label are actually corporatists (because that's who owns them).
- humanrebar 9y agoThere are liberal corporatists. I don't know why that would be a contradiction.
- r00fus 9y agoIt's not a contradiction, it's a clarification. Corporatist means liberal or conservative as long as it pushes the interests of the military industrial complex. They are only as liberal as their funders permit and kowtow to conservative viewpoints as well.
- 0xbear 9y agoUsed to listen to NPR all the time, but now they just shit on Trump 24x7. It was fun in the beginning, but got old after a few weeks. I switched to audible, where I remain to this day, and will remain for the foreseeable future.
- mavhc 9y agoTo be fair, Trump does do stupid things 24x7
- mahyarm 9y agoDoesn't mean you want to talk about him or listen about him 24x7, there are better things to do.
- bb611 9y agoHe's an easy target, and NPR has a very large political reporting apparatus that can't be easily changed to report on anything else.
- ComodoHacker 9y agoCompare that to State radio and television in late USSR. It wasn't strictly obligatory. But there wasn't anything else, so you end up watching and listening to it anyway. Imagine NPR as a giant propaganda machine, powerful and tuned up, but currently working in idle mode (or not?)
- prevailrob 9y agoBeing from the UK, I take it NPR is the equivalent of Radio 4? (Albeit on a bigger scale, naturally)
- fenwick67 9y agoNPR stations regularly play Radio 4 content when it's nighttime in the US. The content is simiilar.
- chrisan 9y agoYou might have to define what Radio 4 is for us in the US. Here's a blurb about what NPR is: http://www.npr.org/about-npr/178640915/npr-stations-and-public-media http://www.npr.org/about-npr/178640915/npr-stations-and-publ... It's basically hundreds of local radio stations that mix local news/flavor with partner stations that have very popular programs
- UncleSlacky 9y ago"BBC Radio 4 is a radio station owned and operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes including news, drama, comedy, science and history." More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Radio_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Radio_4
- martinald 9y agoYes. I don't know if it's on a vaslty bigger scale, according to this they spent $220m in operating expenses: http://www.npr.org/about/statements/fy2015/NPR_Consolidated_Financial_Statements.pdf http://www.npr.org/about/statements/fy2015/NPR_Consolidated_..., compared to about £90m for R4. Before brexit they would be pretty comparable ;).
- gvatnesto 9y agoPublic radio here in Poland is also great, because you can find something for you no matter music or talk-show taste. Buddy of mine who is a driver also like listening to audiobooks on the way. That's great option also.
- Dowwie 9y agoMy family has listened to NPR and WNYC for years. I don't recommend anyone rely on it as an exclusive source for information as it does serve special political interests. Two examples that come to mind are the presidential primaries coverage (it was pro-HRC) and more recently coverage on the Saudi Arabia vs Qatar debacle (conveniently omitting Saudi involvement in global terrorism).
- crispyambulance 9y agoNot surprising. I suspect the reason is that there is a lack of appealing alternatives to NPR on the "conservative" side. If anyone has ever listened to conservative radio like Rush Limbaugh, you'll know that his slow-wit attempts at humor/satire are cringe-worthy failures unless the listener happens to be a septuagenarian with dementia. The other conservative options are preachers and conspiracy wack-jobs... is there anything else?
- throw158965 9y agoThere are sophisticated conservatives, but you definitely need to go to a different medium than radio. Why do so many liberals listen to public radio?
- rdl 9y agoI think truckers are one of the groups of people that really love Sirius/XM satellite radio, too -- uniform programming and coverage across the US, and if you are in your truck all the time, the monthly cost is trivial. Sirius even has special stations dedicated to truckers, as well as most of the ads added by the network being trucker-focused. (If it were me, I'd go for audiobooks, though.)
- patrickg_zill 9y agoThis is a PR piece. It has no correlative relationship to reality. Source: knowing truckers, having them in my family, extended family, friends of family etc. for 40 years. They all have XM/Sirius at this point. None listen to NPR. Why were no statistics about truckers and NPR quoted? Because they wouldn't have supported the thrust of the article.
- eighthnate 9y agoNot only that. The publication was founded by the same people who founded PBS and NPR. "whose members were leaders in founding the PBS and National Public Radio." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_(newspaper) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_(newspaper) This article is like an "article" by foxnews saying everyone is listening to foxnews talk radio. It's pretty much advertisement. And all the comments here is rather praising NPR is rather suspicious as well.
- azernik 9y agoThe comments here praising NPR are not suspicious; they just reflect the echo chamber of rich educated coastal liberals.
- koheripbal 9y agoPBS (and thus NPR) federal funding might be on the chopping block with the next federal budget, so it's not surprising to see pieces trying to get out ahead of that. I grew up on NRP, and I LOVE This American Life, Garrison Keillor, and the reruns of Click and Clack, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that they have a pretty left leaning agenda. The Brian Lehrer show used the anniversary of Pearl Harbor to discuss how Trump might create Muslim concentration camps in America.
- Bartweiss 9y agoI suspect this was true a decade ago, and I suspect it's still true in some of the wilder parts of the country. I'm surprised at how often I'll be out in the mountains somewhere and find no cell signal, no satellite radio, and one lonely NPR channel coming in clear as day. But today, and in general? I don't really buy it. Truckers listen to Audible books, or XM, or a great many other things, and I'd want actual numbers to believe a majority of them listen to NPR.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mrmondo 9y agoNot strictly related to public radio specifically but still interesting on the topic of broadcast radio (and rather disappointing to say the least) - here in Australia we have a big problem with the (lack of) advancement of broadcast quality, while we have DAB+ broadcasts - the stream audio quality is so bad due to the low bit rate - you’re actually better off switching back to FM. The average Australian DAB+ radio stream is... 24-48Kbps! Yes it’s generally AAC+ which is about 30% more efficient than MP3 but it’s not even close to FM sound quality.
- kerbalspacepro 9y agoWhen I looked at moving to Australia, the one consistent thread among the "how to move" media was "Australia's homegrown media sucks and everything else is expensive".
- eighthnate 9y agoIt's always entertaining when stories of NPR or Foxnews or anything political comes up. You always see comments like "my conservative father/mother/brother/friend/etc listened to NPR to find liberal bias and found none". Or "my liberal father/mother/brother/friend/etc listened to foxnews and couldn't find conservative bias". If your conservative family member or friend couldn't find anything liberal on NPR or your liberal friend couldn't find anything conservative on foxnews, then they must be hard of hearing and they should have their ears check by a doctor. People are overcompensating too much or they are embarrassed by what they listen to. It's okay to admit that NPR is liberal. It's okay to admit that foxnews is conservative. It's why they exist. If NPR isn't liberal then it isn't doing its job and not serving their fanbase. If foxnews isn't conservative, then it isn't doing its job and not serving their fanbase. It is just so obvious what people are trying to do and it is annoying. Edit: Just a PSA... current was founded by the people who founded NPR or PBS. So I'd take what they have to say, especially about NPR or PBS, with a grain of salt. "whose members were leaders in founding the PBS and National Public Radio." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_(newspaper) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_(newspaper)
- perpetualcrayon 9y ago"it’s the only station that will go on mile after mile and I can pick it up again" Captive audience. In my experience, when I've lived in very rural areas (and a lot of large metro areas), the only TV stations I could ever get over antenna were PBS, but more often than that I could only get FOX.