Tag: Radio

This CNN story reports that radio is threatened by advances in technology. Thank goodness.

In August my wife and I drove from Michigan through Ohio and Kentucky to a wedding in Tennessee. Wherever we went our radio choices boiled down to a) boy band pop stations, b) classic rock, c) soft rock/80s format, or d) pop country. Yuck.

When I drove to Chicago with a friend in July, the rental car had a CD player and the only time we switched to the radio was for traffic and weather updates.

Maybe if micro-power stations ever actually go life, there might be something worth listening to on the radio, but I find radio to be so bad I don’t even actually have a radio at home. I’d never use it.

Adam Curry has an interesting article on adapting radio formats to Napster/Gnutella, but he has apparently been living outside the United States too long since he writes:

Of course the beauty of a format is that it isn’t copyable, replicable to a certain extent perhaps, but a format can change slightly with just a little tweaking and of course there’s always the content supply. That’s why McDonalds serves Coke and Burger King Pepsi (granted, there are many forces at work there, but you get the point.)

Umm, Adam, a couple years ago Burger King signed a deal to serve Coca Cola products. The only major fast food chains in the United States that still serve Pepsi are typically owned in part by Pepsi, such as Taco Bell and KFC. I believe Subway also serves Pepsi.

I know this, by the way, because I am a Diet Coke addict and, more specifically, I insist on only drinking Diet Coke that comes from a fountain at a fast food place — except some places like Burger King have fountains out in the restaurant rather than behind the counter, and these are to be avoided at all costs as they are usually poorly maintained and usually the Diet Coke tastes (even more) like crap. Go through the drive through in that case.