Hell or Nirvana?
Why do Radio Stations Always Play the Same Songs?
Have you ever been driving to work when your phone beeps to alert you it’s on its last leg of battery power? You dig around the console with your free hand while keeping your eyes on the road and fumble for the phone charger.
You fumble some more and start to gripe under your breath. You get to a long line of traffic stopped at a red light.
You look into your console and dig frustratedly around in it while glancing up every other second to see if the car in front of you is moving yet.
Where the hell is that damn charger?
And then you remember. You brought it in last night in case you decided to take your boyfriend’s car in the morning. You set it on the counter beside your purse so you’d be sure not to forget it.
You suddenly become aware the cars around you are moving and you sheepishly hit the gas to catch up with the car in front of you that’s now much further ahead.
Your coffee splashes out of the top of the thermos and makes small puddles on your gear shifter and that dusty pair of sunglasses that’s been sitting in your middle console for who knows how long.
You didn’t take your boyfriend’s car today. The damn charger is on the damn counter beside where your damn purse had been sitting before you grabbed it this morning.
Damnit!
You have a good half hour or so until you get to work. With a frustrated exclamation you jab the pause button on your podcast to conserve the battery. You switch your car stereo to FM mode.
94.1 — ” — your car warranty today, and if y — ” Switch.
96.1 — ” — welcome back to prank calls with Kev — ” Switch.
98.5 — Your favorite station. You pray there will be music and not ads. Moment of truth now. Switch. — ”no, I dooooooon’t have a gun. No, I — ”
How many damn times have you heard this freaking song over the years? C’mon! It was good the first few hundred times. It’s been decades.
You know there’s new music being made out there. So, why they hell are they always playing the same five bands over and over ad nauseum?
You glance at the phone. 9% battery. You are trapped. Trapped in traffic and trapped with Nirvana. The perfect start to what promises to be a perfect day.
Journalist Ken Picard has researched the total lack of song diversity on radio stations today. “… it all boils down to risk aversion. For-profit radio stations must keep listeners tuned in through the ads, which pay the bills. So the music they choose is ‘safe, familiar and well tested’” (Picard).
Can audience members influence local stations to play a wider diversity of music? If I call in 10 times a day everyday for a year, will they play the severely underplayed Modest Mouse song I want to hear?
It’s unlikely.
Audiences tune in expecting to hear the same old, comforting songs. Radio stations are just businesses and it’s all a numbers game. It’s the same old story.
Whatever doesn’t cause the ratings to go down. New music? Unfortunately, many people reach for the radio dial after a few seconds if they don’t recognize the tune.
We, as consumers, are not creating a market that offers what we want to consume. No. Rather, the market tells us what we want to consume. With radio, with TV, with journalism, pop media, etc.
You’ll be humming Come As You Are all day at work under your breath. And, on your way home tonight you’ll swing by the drugstore and pick up a new car phone charger.
Works Cited
Picard, Ken. “WTF: Why Do Local Radio Stations Play the Same Songs Over and Over?” Seven Days. 02 Feb 2022. Accessed 20 Apr 2022. https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/wtf-why-do-local-radio-stations-play-the-same-songs-over-and-over/Content?oid=34804301#:~:text=He%20explained%20via%20email%20that,locally%20from%20their%20own%20library.
