My current listening habbits while driving my vehicle around my little
corner of Montana include listening to my MP3 compact discs. My disc
collection consists of whatever flavor of music fits my current mood.

At times, I will switch from music MP3 discs to some sort of recorded
audio, perhaps an old radio drama show, or perhaps a speech that
someone gave about a topic of interest to me.

However, there are times in the day when I will listen to either AM
radio or FM radio. My listening habbits on AM radio include late
evening DXing. I love checking out what sort of propagation might be
occuring during different times between pre-dusk through about
midnight, or early morning during power changes. And with that DX, I
hope to hear something of the local events so that I might better
grasp what the world around me is experiencing, or at least
reporting. Or, I'll listen to the AM local stations, as I am
interested in local news and weather.

When I switch to FM, and here's the point of my post, I hope to catch
new music, so I can know what new material might be coming out in some
genre. And, I also get a taste of what the local music scene is
doing, in whatever genre.

I agree with the others who hold the opinion that commercial FM will
survive best if the playlists would move away from mindless rotations
of mainstream offerings, and move more toward exposure of less-known
and newer excursions into developing musical talent and new offshoots
of a genre.

I think AM radio will struggle if it continues to offer the same few
syndicated shows on (what appears to be) 70 percent of the nation's
stations. For me, it is a tedious endeavor to tune through the band
from edge to edge only to hear the same show from frequency to
frequency. So little choice in programming. That's like having 60
channels on TV, with a high percentage of those channels offering the
exact same show. (Click... click... click... click. Man, can there
be anything else on except for this late-night "black helicopters have
been hovering around our town, lately" show?) Why must we be
subjected to hearing such a small selection, no matter where we tune
on the AM dial, during the peak DX hours? I'd love to hear more
locally produced shows. Local shows about local events, interests,
people--that would be more community-service oriented. In my
thinking, that would also be more locally supported financially.
Could it be that major national companies that can offer bigger
advertisement budgets shape the programming choices? The landscape
has really changed over the course of radio's history.

Is that why low-power FM appears so attractive to many communities? I
know of one community in Washington state that is working hard to get
one such station on the air. They've been jumping through a lot of
hoops. They are still not on the air... but the hope is that they can
offer real local talent, local production, and local interest.

While driving, I tend to bring my own musical entertainment or spoken
word by way of MP3 discs, radio still plays a central role in my
current listening habbits. Radio would play a more significant role,
however, if the trend on radio moved ever more toward to local
interests, and to newer talent and offerings. Radio can still be "red
hot."

- NW7US
contributing editor, PopComm, CQ, CQ VHF