How long before this happens?

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Fri, 27 Jul 2012 20:34:42 -0400 (EDT), Mark Connelly <markwa1ion@aol.com> said:

> A station offering 1930-1970 music should always be an available "menu 
> pick" even when most potential listeners were born years after that 
> period.

A format like that would be like an old-fashioned industrial
conglomerate: all things to all people doesn't actually please
anybody.  Wall Street hates conglomerates, because it's too hard to
analyze disparate businesses that grow at different rates and have
different capital needs under one roof.  Radio hates broad-based
formats because by their very nature they will never be top-rated in
any demo the advertisers are interested in buying.  The Wall Street
answers to diversification are mutual funds and index futures; the
radio analogue to the mutual fund is something like Sirius XM or
Pandora, which allows listeners to fine-tune their music mix by
choosing from a large library (effectively infinite in Pandora's case)
of possible formats.

On my drive in to work each morning, I often find myself flipping
among WXRV, WBZ, and XM 80s on 8, 90s on 9, First Wave, The Pulse,
Pop2K, and The Blend.  I have a few of the "public radio" channels on
the other bank of presets, but I rarely use them since most of the
public radio stuff that I listen to these days is available by podcast
before WBUR or WGBH ever air it.

-GAWollman