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I believe radio across Europe was largely ad free and had a different business model. The BBC for example.

• brulx126 2mo ago
  You say "was" as if it was a thing of the past. But public broadcasting still exists in many countries in Europe, including radio and TV. They have either less or no ads and their quality is much higher than that of purely ad-funded private stations that nowadays are sometimes even completely automated.
  • account42 2mo ago
    > their quality is much higher Hard disagree. At least commercial entertainment providers have to work to retain their customers, unlike public broadcasters where they get funded (either via taxes or forced licenses) no matter how many people dislike them.
    • brulx126 2mo ago
      It sounds like you are speaking from a theoretical perspective. In practice, there is not enough money in radio ads to put any effort in producing material of decent quality. As an objective metric, I found in Germany that the private stations literally broadcast at half the bitrate of the public stations where I tested it.
      • account42 2mo ago
        No I speak from a practical perspective. Publicly funded radio and televisions is pure cancer. I don't care about the bitrate they use to encode their crap when it's crap in the first place.