4 ms·

I'm a little biased here, since my family runs a small Boston-area AM radio station, but... no? It's not a huge business, but it is a full-time job for a few pe

by tapoxi 3y ago

I'm a little biased here, since my family runs a small Boston-area AM radio station, but... no? It's not a huge business, but it is a full-time job for a few people and carries advertisements for local businesses. There are other local stations keeping the spirit alive as well (WJIB, rip Bob Bittner). Sure, you'll anger the bigger stations, but you'll also hurt all the smaller stations that play by the rules and do something interesting, and interfering with that will only hasten their inevitable death to newer (and cheaper) technologies. There are plenty of other, open broadcast mechanisms to use out there.

everforward 3y ago
> and carries advertisements for local businesses. Which makes it a business interest; they are beholden to businesses for survival, and businesses are generally backers of the state. Being beholden to those forces and the need to make money limits the range of interesting things a traditional station can engage in. I would agree with OP, though. The utility I get from broadcasters is so low that I would support rolling the commercial wavelengths into the non-commercial one just to see if someone can do something more interesting with it. The current approach to the spectrum seems to have run its course. I will certainly acknowledge that I don't consume any radio which colors that view, though that's not a weird situation these days. I hate radio enough that I'd rather actually pay for cell data to play my own stuff than listen to radio for free. > There are plenty of other, open broadcast mechanisms to use out there. Not with the qualities of radio. It's geographically scoped, every car has a built-in receiver for it, it's free listening is communal/simultaneous, and it's difficult to censor (relative to something centrally managed like YouTube). Various combinations of those properties give interesting possibilities that are much harder to replicate via Twitch or YouTube or IceCast.

by tapoxi 3y ago

everforward 3y ago

> and carries advertisements for local businesses. Which makes it a business interest; they are beholden to businesses for survival, and businesses are generally backers of the state. Being beholden to those forces and the need to make money limits the range of interesting things a traditional station can engage in. I would agree with OP, though. The utility I get from broadcasters is so low that I would support rolling the commercial wavelengths into the non-commercial one just to see if someone can do something more interesting with it. The current approach to the spectrum seems to have run its course. I will certainly acknowledge that I don't consume any radio which colors that view, though that's not a weird situation these days. I hate radio enough that I'd rather actually pay for cell data to play my own stuff than listen to radio for free. > There are plenty of other, open broadcast mechanisms to use out there. Not with the qualities of radio. It's geographically scoped, every car has a built-in receiver for it, it's free listening is communal/simultaneous, and it's difficult to censor (relative to something centrally managed like YouTube). Various combinations of those properties give interesting possibilities that are much harder to replicate via Twitch or YouTube or IceCast.