Retro radio stations

[N2022]

I have some random observations / questions, and wanted to air rhem here. Feel free to chip in.

There are so many specific stations now, especially by decade...

1. Is it good that we relive the memories or are we in danger of narrowing our tastes and reinforcing ignorance and intolerance of new stuff? I like educating my kids on the 80s and 90s stuff, but now they seem to know no more contemporary artists than I do, which is Taylor Swift and a few others by name only.

2. The playlists. Are some songs getting airplay disproportionate to their quality or popularity in the era they were written? As an example, The Journey - Don't Stop Believin' has become a go to example of 80s for a younger generation but I don't remember it being huge back in the day. Shannon - Let the music play is not great but surfaces regularly - is this because of an algorithm, some human's taste or because some commercial radio group owns the rights and it's a free / cheap option?

3 The artists - am I right in thinking artists from the past are now making huge money off PRS royalties (compared to say 10 years ago) because of the vastly increased number of stations with airtime to fill and a defined 10-year body of works to choose from? Times we hear the same artist twice in a 15-minute drive flicking between 4 or 5 stations made me think this.

Random but maybe you have insights ...

[Futtocks]

1. I work with much younger people and they are a lot more broad-minded in musical taste than the cliquey, excusive days of my youth. Every Thursday at work, we have a teams "jukebox" chat where everyone gets to post YouTube links to songs that fit the week's theme.

2. Journey's Don't stop believin' was not a big UK hit originally, but featured in an early episode of the hit TV show Glee, which gave it a second life. Airplay is also gamed by promoters and a big budget can get lots of exposure. Or it can backfire, like when iTunes forced a single by U2 onto an unwilling world by adding it to everyone's libraries whether they wanted it or not.

3. Definitions - royalties means sales income. PRS means live performance income. MCPS means recordings, broadcasts and usage in media (i.e. soundtracks, background music, etc.). A lot of the time artists are not making much, as platforms like Spotify pay an absolute pittance even for hundreds of thousands of plays. Bands used to be able to earn enough from a record contract to at least make their next album. Now they have to play live (if they can) and also merchandise their image just so they can afford to keep going, let alone find the time to write new material.

[Futtocks]

Talking of streaming income, here's an example. Roger McGuinnn of The Byrds posted a few years ago that "Pandora played Eight Miles High 228,086 times in the second quarter of 2016 and paid me $9.15".

[Eddie]

I thought this was going to be a thread about Atlantic 252. 

[gingerjon]

8 hours ago, N2022 said:

I have some random observations / questions, and wanted to air rhem here. Feel free to chip in.

There are so many specific stations now, especially by decade...

1. Is it good that we relive the memories or are we in danger of narrowing our tastes and reinforcing ignorance and intolerance of new stuff? I like educating my kids on the 80s and 90s stuff, but now they seem to know no more contemporary artists than I do, which is Taylor Swift and a few others by name only.

2. The playlists. Are some songs getting airplay disproportionate to their quality or popularity in the era they were written? As an example, The Journey - Don't Stop Believin' has become a go to example of 80s for a younger generation but I don't remember it being huge back in the day. Shannon - Let the music play is not great but surfaces regularly - is this because of an algorithm, some human's taste or because some commercial radio group owns the rights and it's a free / cheap option?

3 The artists - am I right in thinking artists from the past are now making huge money off PRS royalties (compared to say 10 years ago) because of the vastly increased number of stations with airtime to fill and a defined 10-year body of works to choose from? Times we hear the same artist twice in a 15-minute drive flicking between 4 or 5 stations made me think this.

Random but maybe you have insights ...

In terms of the the history and threads of 'pop' culture, I think (very broadly) the young un's today know far less than we did.

In terms of surprising you with some random songs and films they know - they are (again, very broadly) very open to all kinds of stuff. Tiny Ginger and his friends got a bit tipsy and belted out, word perfectly, Billy Joel's Piano Man the other day. They can do this with all manner of surprising stuff.

You are right about Don't Stop Believin' - and Futtocks is right about why it is now played all the time.

I think it is a very small number of artists/publishers making real money but those that do are making a lot.

I am currently listening to WDR3 and mock the idea that the twentieth century is retro. Start your day with some Monteverdi to go really into the past.

[graveyard johnny]

digital radio was hailed as a new era of vast choice when in reality its just a huge advertising platform with more of the same spread more thinly - a great con really - BOOM  radio is the only station worth listening to - real presenters who know their stuff and are not afraid to play different stuff and give you all  the info on it afterwards - some people are happy to listen to the same old songs everyday as familiar is safe for them - series and shows make some songs hits again - music is a bit like comedy -you like what you like and in general "its all been done " 

[Futtocks]

16 minutes ago, graveyard johnny said:

digital radio was hailed as a new era of vast choice when in reality its just a huge advertising platform with more of the same spread more thinly - a great con really - BOOM  radio is the only station worth listening to - real presenters who know their stuff and are not afraid to play different stuff and give you all  the info on it afterwards - some people are happy to listen to the same old songs everyday as familiar is safe for them - series and shows make some songs hits again - music is a bit like comedy -you like what you like and in general "its all been done " 

DAB was hurriedly implemented in the UK and has various technical drawbacks and when you get interference, it makes a much nastier sound than analogue radio hiss. Plus, with so many independent and/or local stations being swallowed up by corporate blandcasters, most of the music stations are essentially the same apart from local weather/traffic reports.

But internet radio is streets ahead now. Find a few stations playing what you like and it doesn't matter where they are, plus the sound quality is usually much better than DAB/DAB+.

I was an early adopter of DAB because of Test Match Special, but the internet stream of the same station is in stereo, which greatly adds to the atmosphere.

I have quite a few classical stations boomarked, from Japan to Mexico to Switzerland to the USA. My tuner does FM & DAB+ too, but that's only used when my internet's playing up.

Edited January 30 by Futtocks

[Futtocks]

One of the things I like about a good internet radio station is that they archive their playlists on the website, so you can go back and identify a track you liked but didn't recognise. I see that Boom are one of the stations that do this.

[The Masked Poster]

I don’t bother with individual radio stations anymore and get my listening pleasure from a website called radio echoes.com

There is probably recordings of Adam and Eve on there, it’s ridiculous the amount of stuff on it. For me it’s old Sherlock Holmes and Paul Temple etc or the old Home Service shows like Men From the Ministy etc. I donate a couple of pounds a month (you don’t have to) and wallooop, listening sorted. (There are music shows too, perhaps obviously)

[Padge]

On 29/01/2026 at 23:51, Futtocks said:

1. I work with much younger people and they are a lot more broad-minded in musical taste than the cliquey, excusive days of my youth. Every Thursday at work, we have a teams "jukebox" chat where everyone gets to post YouTube links to songs that fit the week's theme.

2. Journey's Don't stop believin' was not a big UK hit originally, but featured in an early episode of the hit TV show Glee, which gave it a second life. Airplay is also gamed by promoters and a big budget can get lots of exposure. Or it can backfire, like when iTunes forced a single by U2 onto an unwilling world by adding it to everyone's libraries whether they wanted it or not.

3. Definitions - royalties means sales income. PRS means live performance income. MCPS means recordings, broadcasts and usage in media (i.e. soundtracks, background music, etc.). A lot of the time artists are not making much, as platforms like Spotify pay an absolute pittance even for hundreds of thousands of plays. Bands used to be able to earn enough from a record contract to at least make their next album. Now they have to play live (if they can) and also merchandise their image just so they can afford to keep going, let alone find the time to write new material.

Peter Grant wouldn't have put up with this$...

[R L Winger]

I currently and have been presenting a Rock radio show at 11pm AEDT Friday nights for the past 5 years called Rock Of Ages on Coast FM963

96.3 on the FM dial we are a 24 hour community radio station located in Gosford NSW Australia with a listening base upwards of 100,000 people with more listeners than most of the Commercial radio stations in the Central Coast region of NSW. Gosford is situated an hours drive north of Sydney the biggest city in Australia. Our listener base is of all ages, the stations format from 6am to 6pm weekdays is presented Classic Hits, with presented speciality shows at weekends and all other times of the day and night. To Check out our presenters and show lists as well as our listen live tab go to

coastfm.org.au

[Wiltshire Warrior Dragon]

On 30/01/2026 at 07:11, gingerjon said:

I am currently listening to WDR3 and mock the idea that the twentieth century is retro. Start your day with some Monteverdi to go really into the past.

Monteverdi?  Bit modern GJ!  Stick to plainsong, I say.  After all, it gave us the basis for the tonic sol-fa scale!

[Padge]

On 29/01/2026 at 23:54, Futtocks said:

Talking of streaming income, here's an example. Roger McGuinnn of The Byrds posted a few years ago that "Pandora played Eight Miles High 228,086 times in the second quarter of 2016 and paid me $9.15".

When he says "played" does he mean individuals listened/played, much as Radio1 may be said to have played a record 400,000 times when in reality it was played once to 400,000 people.

Edited February 3 by Padge

[graveyard johnny]

14 hours ago, R L Winger said:

I currently and have been presenting a Rock radio show at 11pm AEDT Friday nights for the past 5 years called Rock Of Ages on Coast FM963

96.3 on the FM dial we are a 24 hour community radio station located in Gosford NSW Australia with a listening base upwards of 100,000 people with more listeners than most of the Commercial radio stations in the Central Coast region of NSW. Gosford is situated an hours drive north of Sydney the biggest city in Australia. Our listener base is of all ages, the stations format from 6am to 6pm weekdays is presented Classic Hits, with presented speciality shows at weekends and all other times of the day and night. To Check out our presenters and show lists as well as our listen live tab go to

coastfm.org.au

do you play any Creme Brulee? 

Edited February 3 by graveyard johnny

[Sidi Fidi Gold]

18 minutes ago, graveyard johnny said:

do you play any Creme Brulee? 

 

[Derwent]

Apparently a lot of music streaming now is made up of bots listening to AI generated music millions of times. Robots making music for other robots....

'Robots listening to robots': How AI music fraudsters are spamming sites and taking cash from real musicians | Science, Climate & Tech News | Sky News

[JonM]

Anybody know what happened to Atlantisman? Surely this is a thread for him?

[gingerjon]

18 hours ago, JonM said:

Anybody know what happened to Atlantisman? Surely this is a thread for him?

His things on rugbyleague.com and elsewhere still seem to be running.

[R L Winger]

On 04/02/2026 at 03:16, graveyard johnny said:

do you play any Creme Brulee? 

Can't say I have no