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Local radio stations of my childhood did one thing that no streaming service could provide... community. Not the "fake" online community crap. You got the news

Local radio stations of my childhood did one thing that no streaming service could provide... community. Not the "fake" online community crap. You got the news of your community. You learned the away high school basketball game had been rescheduled. You learned about crimes that may have happened in your community. It helped get local news out in a town that had a weekly newspaper. You got to hear fascinating stories from old timers in your community. Oh and there was music thrown in for good measure :)

Johnny555 7y ago
While this is true, since nowawadays you can just get all of that information off your smart-phone, broadcasting such information no longer brings enough listeners to support a station. Though to be honest, I don't even know what brings listeners to radio these days -- the only radio I listen to is 20 seconds in the morning before my car's infotainment system finishes booting and connects to my phone and then I can ask it to play just about any song/genre/playlist I want to, or ask for a news briefing, or the weather, etc. I used to listen to the station with the best traffic reports, but I don't even need that since my phone map will tell me about traffic backups ahead and even reroute me around it automatically
- ohithereyou 7y ago
  >nowawadays you can just get all of that information off your smart-phone Nowadays you can get all of that information off you smart-phone, but what about people that have no Internet access, no cable, no smart phone, and no regular access to any information services other than broadcast media due to cost? I have an aunt (by marriage) that can't afford a computer, can't afford a cell phone beyond a very basic feature phone, can't afford mobile data, couldn't afford the Internet even if she had a computer, and certainly can't afford a newspaper subscription. She listens to the local radio station for her small town to keep informed about what is going on, and occasionally goes to the local library to check her email to talk to her nieces and nephews who seem to be calling less and less lately because "everybody has a smartphone and Aunt Connie can see what they're doing on Facebook". There is a significant section of the population that relies on broadcast media to get information about their community. The fact that you do not does not mean that locally-owned, locally-focused broadcasters are a waste.
  - Johnny555 7y ago
    There is a significant section of the population that relies on broadcast media to get information about their community. The fact that you do not does not mean that locally-owned, locally-focused broadcasters are a waste. I never said they were a waste, I just pointed out that they (like newspapers) are much less relevant to most people than they used to be, which is why they are dying and getting bought up. The low-income people that can't afford a cell phone or home internet, are not the kind of listeners than can support an advertising supported radio station. One solution could be for the government to subsidize local broadcast stations, though I think a better solution would be to subsidize internet access (or even smart phones) because those without internet connectivity miss out on a lot more than the highschool football scores, and no subsidized radio station will improve that.
- hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
  > nowawadays you can just get all of that information off your smart-phone Really, where? When it comes to super-local specific, curated information, I find it really hard to duplicate what you used to get from local radio stations. You certainly have all the different bits and pieces, but IMO not in a way that curates it to a consistent view, and sense of community, the way radio used to.
  - Johnny555 7y ago
    My local school district posts an events calendar, school closures, lunch menus, etc on their website. Students/families can also subscribe to an alert system that will notify them immediately about important events. My hometown paper publishes their police blotter online, that includes pretty much every police call including car breakins and kitten rescues. The paper also publishes also publishes local interest stories, interviews, etc. They don't publish the paper every day any more and it's in tabloid format now instead of broadsheet, but the online site is up to date. Google maps gives me real-time traffic updates, Waze will tell me if there's construction or a dead animal on the road ahead. So it's not all in one place, but it's all on my phone, and available on demand, I don't have to wait until the top of the hour to find out if there's an accident on my route to work.
    - JudgeWapner 7y ago
      and that explains why it's not as useful. I think just the act of having someone deliver it to you constitutes the connection. And having "every police call including kitten rescues" is a bug, not a feature. Too much information is just as bad as not enough.
      - Johnny555 7y ago
        and that explains why it's not as useful I can get the information on demand 24x7 from anywhere in the world, that seems more useful than having someone read it to me at scheduled times on the radio where if I don't happen to be listening at that time, I miss it. If I have to work through the high school football game (or am out of town) and want to know the score when I come home, I can pull up the school's webpage at 11pm to see the score, I don't need to tune in at 7am the next morning to hear the local news. If there's a water leak and school is closed early, I don't have to be listening to the radio all day to hear the announcement or wait for my child to call me, I'll get an SMS (and/or phone call or email or app alert) and I can already be on my way home to meet her. Too much information is just as bad as not enough This is a rural area, my typical hometown police blotter column includes 4 or 5 incidents (including the occasional kitten rescues and lost cow found wandering downtown). That's hardly too much information. And back when they did read this information on our local AM station, they included the same information (our family dog made the police report on the radio when she was reported on the local highway and returned home by police)

Johnny555 7y ago

While this is true, since nowawadays you can just get all of that information off your smart-phone, broadcasting such information no longer brings enough listeners to support a station. Though to be honest, I don't even know what brings listeners to radio these days -- the only radio I listen to is 20 seconds in the morning before my car's infotainment system finishes booting and connects to my phone and then I can ask it to play just about any song/genre/playlist I want to, or ask for a news briefing, or the weather, etc. I used to listen to the station with the best traffic reports, but I don't even need that since my phone map will tell me about traffic backups ahead and even reroute me around it automatically

ohithereyou 7y ago
>nowawadays you can just get all of that information off your smart-phone Nowadays you can get all of that information off you smart-phone, but what about people that have no Internet access, no cable, no smart phone, and no regular access to any information services other than broadcast media due to cost? I have an aunt (by marriage) that can't afford a computer, can't afford a cell phone beyond a very basic feature phone, can't afford mobile data, couldn't afford the Internet even if she had a computer, and certainly can't afford a newspaper subscription. She listens to the local radio station for her small town to keep informed about what is going on, and occasionally goes to the local library to check her email to talk to her nieces and nephews who seem to be calling less and less lately because "everybody has a smartphone and Aunt Connie can see what they're doing on Facebook". There is a significant section of the population that relies on broadcast media to get information about their community. The fact that you do not does not mean that locally-owned, locally-focused broadcasters are a waste.
- Johnny555 7y ago
  There is a significant section of the population that relies on broadcast media to get information about their community. The fact that you do not does not mean that locally-owned, locally-focused broadcasters are a waste. I never said they were a waste, I just pointed out that they (like newspapers) are much less relevant to most people than they used to be, which is why they are dying and getting bought up. The low-income people that can't afford a cell phone or home internet, are not the kind of listeners than can support an advertising supported radio station. One solution could be for the government to subsidize local broadcast stations, though I think a better solution would be to subsidize internet access (or even smart phones) because those without internet connectivity miss out on a lot more than the highschool football scores, and no subsidized radio station will improve that.
hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
> nowawadays you can just get all of that information off your smart-phone Really, where? When it comes to super-local specific, curated information, I find it really hard to duplicate what you used to get from local radio stations. You certainly have all the different bits and pieces, but IMO not in a way that curates it to a consistent view, and sense of community, the way radio used to.
- Johnny555 7y ago
  My local school district posts an events calendar, school closures, lunch menus, etc on their website. Students/families can also subscribe to an alert system that will notify them immediately about important events. My hometown paper publishes their police blotter online, that includes pretty much every police call including car breakins and kitten rescues. The paper also publishes also publishes local interest stories, interviews, etc. They don't publish the paper every day any more and it's in tabloid format now instead of broadsheet, but the online site is up to date. Google maps gives me real-time traffic updates, Waze will tell me if there's construction or a dead animal on the road ahead. So it's not all in one place, but it's all on my phone, and available on demand, I don't have to wait until the top of the hour to find out if there's an accident on my route to work.
  - JudgeWapner 7y ago
    and that explains why it's not as useful. I think just the act of having someone deliver it to you constitutes the connection. And having "every police call including kitten rescues" is a bug, not a feature. Too much information is just as bad as not enough.
    - Johnny555 7y ago
      and that explains why it's not as useful I can get the information on demand 24x7 from anywhere in the world, that seems more useful than having someone read it to me at scheduled times on the radio where if I don't happen to be listening at that time, I miss it. If I have to work through the high school football game (or am out of town) and want to know the score when I come home, I can pull up the school's webpage at 11pm to see the score, I don't need to tune in at 7am the next morning to hear the local news. If there's a water leak and school is closed early, I don't have to be listening to the radio all day to hear the announcement or wait for my child to call me, I'll get an SMS (and/or phone call or email or app alert) and I can already be on my way home to meet her. Too much information is just as bad as not enough This is a rural area, my typical hometown police blotter column includes 4 or 5 incidents (including the occasional kitten rescues and lost cow found wandering downtown). That's hardly too much information. And back when they did read this information on our local AM station, they included the same information (our family dog made the police report on the radio when she was reported on the local highway and returned home by police)