Posted on 07/03/2004 6:11:22 PM PDT by ovrtaxt
And in case you haven't seen this, check it out:
http://www.live365.com/index.live
I can remember when cable TV came out. No commercials, or very few if any. Now? It's non-stop, endless commercials.
We all got duped and hoodwinked into paying for TV.
Sounds like we are in the same boat. I like different types of music but it's out of the main stream. Even the rock and roll that is played on the 60's, 70's and 80's stations isn't the playlist that I care for and does not test well in the listener focus groups that advertisers use to carry the commercial load on radio stations (and that's what it comes down to).
I read an article here on FR that said current US radio programs play as many as 25 minutes of ads in a 1 hour show. LOTS of interruptions. Europe, so I have heard, places its commericals at half hour intervals, not breaking up the programs as much. How many minutes of ads in 1 hour, though, I don't know.
Why would you expect people to spend their time, energy, and hard-earned dollars, and not get paid for their investment.
I went to lunch at McDonalds yesterday, and ate one of their $1 double cheeseburgers. I bought one for my dog, but got it without cheese.
I went to dinner last night at the Outback Steakhouse. With tip, for two of us (not the dog) to have dinner, was just under a hundred bucks, and included a blttle of over-priced wine. I wanted it.
They spend all day cooking ribs at Outback, but don't open until 5pm. I probably paid extra for time when the store wasn't open, but they were making my dinner... and damn they were good ribs! Both cost me $$$, but I rather enjoyed the more expensive meal. I just filled my empty belly with the other one!!!
When I was in France in October 1999, I remember FM radio sounding EXACTLY like American FM (except for the language, of course).
I'll always associate "Mambo Number Five" with that trip, because I heard it so d**m many times.
So, you're telling me we have *influenced* another country? ;)
If you have Dish TV you can sample Sirius radio. They just added it to the audio channels. I really do like the variety they offer. I live in an area where the only stations are country, urban, pop, classic rock and stuck in the 80's.
I think I created a monster :-)
I KNOW you did down here in North Carolina. :-)
Yeowza! At 11:27 it's 71 degrees with a mild pacific breeze, and unlimited visibility. The Pacific salmon and 1/2 hadenuf burgers are being prepared for the BBQ. Margarita mix is almost ready...
I went to lunch at McDonalds yesterday, and ate one of their $1 double cheeseburgers. I bought one for my dog, but got it without cheese.
A friend once time threw down a half eaten big mac, my German Shepard walked over and sniffed and and walked away. That's garbage food, you ought to stay away from it.
I went to dinner last night at the Outback Steakhouse. With tip, for two of us (not the dog) to have dinner, was just under a hundred bucks, and included a blttle of over-priced wine. I wanted it.
We stay away from restaurants, to expensive, and the food is generally weak. To many coodies, and loud brats at restaurants.
They spend all day cooking ribs at Outback, but don't open until 5pm. I probably paid extra for time when the store wasn't open, but they were making my dinner... and damn they were good ribs! Both cost me $$$, but I rather enjoyed the more expensive meal. I just filled my empty belly with the other one!!!
Restaurant ribs are nasty. None come close to the ribs we BBQ and the Margaritas only cost us about 50 cents each, and are *MUCH* better!
Our neighbors are making home made enchilades for this evening. *Nothing* comes close to those things.
Oh, there commercials suck to. That place is an over priced, more like tourist trap.
But hey, different strokes.......
It's still there. It comes and goes. Alex Jones, "Christian Media"(survivalist marketing), gold bugs, Bill whatshisname of
"Behold a Pale Horse(Rider?)" reruns on occasion. And the looney left as well.
But there's a lot of other stuff too. People who like producing their own shows. Obscure (covers, flipsides,
novelty, celebs, etc) music from the 60s and 70s, 80-100 year old recordings, current novelty, avant-garde,
vanity performances, stories, 30s/40s/50s stuff, various talk shows (some even have 800#s).
If you're interested, ilgradio.com offers a slightly behind quarterly db of shortwave station times free to non radio
professionals.
And Michael Moore? Much louder laughing on the way to the bank than the Alex Jones/"Profit" Stair/Dr. Scotts of the world, I should think.
$120 isn't such a big investment, plus $10 per month. I have had XM for about 3 months and love it. The talk channels alone are worth it, along with the 70's hits station (no commercials on music channels). You can move the radio from vehicle to vehicle with little difficulty (I can't wait to take mine on our van drive from NC to St. Louis). You never have to change stations. No stations fade out. It is really a great thing to have. I even listen for 30-60 snippets to Air America, when I want to get my blood pressure up. I recommend it highlyl.
Yeah all 4 channels if you count PBS. Well at least channel surfing was quick.
We had cable in NE PA back in the mid's 60's, it's purpose was pull in the fringe broadcast stations from NY, Philly, Baltimore and DC. Just regular stations commercials and all and usually off the air by 1 AM. Later in the early 70's we got HBO, Wilkes-Barre is where it started, that was commercial free but it only had 6 hours of daily programming 6PM to midnight which was repeated the following day noon to 6PM. It cost about the same as today accounting inflation.
As for pay radio if the content is crap it ain't worth a dime but XM (no commercials) has their act together and I hear music that would cost thousands of dollars to collect, even at old 60's record prices, if you could even find the songs anymore. Now back to Harry James, Dinah Shore, Perry Como, Sinatra and Jolson, they are only in 1947 in their "HIT" countdown of the last 70 years which started Thursday afternoon.
Sirius is what Hertz carries. Pretty darned good.
But heads up on this stuff. The frequencies in use don't penetrate walls. A portable satellite radio won't work indoors.
The reason we can't get Rush is that his agreements are with local stations, who would be undercut by a national signal.
I just took my little XM antenna off the windowsill and brought it in the room and put in front of my amp, about 4 feet into the room and I still have full lock, if I turn it away from the window I start to lose but still get programming, about 6 feet into the room I get the skips, in the hall it's gone.
I think the answer will be a little repeater. Antenna on the roof hooked to a little rebroadcaster in your house.
Reception is no problem when hooked up my home audio equipment. With a portable it may be more of a concern but with the antenna being smaller than a pack of cards it's not much different than positioning a radio for good FM. XM sells a boombox for just that purpose.
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