Why is daytime radio in the UK such garbage?

I

I-Spy

Active Member
I had to drive to the South Coast yesterday with only the car radio to listen to.
It is totally impossible to find a national radio station which plays anything I can find worth listening to.
I find it amazing that there isn't a equivalent of Ibiza Global Radio broadcast nationally in a country such as the UK.
Maybe there is in inner London, but where I am in Surrey, we have Radio 1, Capital, Virgin, Kiss etc all playing exactly the same crap over and over again with dumbed down DJ's talking inane rubbish.

There is XFM which covers indie, Radio 3 and Classic FM for classical.
Surely there are enough people who are into our music to make a station such as IGR a commercialy viable enterprise.
Every time I put it on, it plays exactly what I want to be listening to, at exactly the right time of day.
Everyone I have ever introduced it to, clubbers or not, have been bowled over with the absolute quality of it.
Even the guy from the gas board who came this morning to fix my heating asked ''what radio station is this ,then, mate''
I find it so frustrating that those in charge of the UK's media assume that we are all brainless morons.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
daytime radio has always been garbage (although in the past, some of the garbage like DLT's radio snooker quiz was quite listenable) It's not really there for people to listen to, it's designed to provide background noise for people in offices or garages or shopfloors. If you actually want to listen to good music in the car, then fill up your ipod with podcasts beforehand.
 
Ok. I am not saying that there isn't a market for the garbage radio stations.
What I am saying, surely there is a large enough potential market for something else.
 
grego said:
:idea::idea:

put me down for a mid morning disco, old skool hiphop and soul show please. ;)
Click to expand...

I tell you what Grego, sooner or later somebody is going to do it.
It's just such an obvious idea.
Probably would cost a fortune to set up though to have it national, with all the broadcasting restrictions etc.
Might have a word with Mr Branson.
 
My local radio station which has now converted to Heart plays the same stuff ALL THE TIME. What also makes me laugh is say an artist brings out a new song ie. Beyonce just for example - they still play one of her older songs? Its like hello shouldnt you be playing new and old stuff?
 
there is massive pressure by advertisers on commercial radio to keep audiences sweet (especially during an advertising recession) - hence the usual bland diet of ballads, MOR singer-songwriters or reality rejects, competitions + anodyne presenters from the nicky campbell school of smarm, usually with midatlantic accents and no original opinions on anything and, hey presto = FORMULA! Which is precisely why the BBC, immune to those pressures, shouldn't be trying to compete with the riffraff but offering something different. I used to listen to R1 a lot but because I am over 24 I am no longer in their target demographic (the feeling is mutual) and presumably "my demographic" has been shipped out to BBC 6 or *shudder* Radio 2... I really have no idea. Thank fck for itunes.
 
They are scared, they only play what they consider to be safe.
Daytime Radio One was not allowed at first to play the Skreem mix of ''In for the Kill'' as it was considered too edgy and radical.
They assume we are all musically and intellectually at a very basic level and they are probably right to a certain extent as a great number of the UK public are.
But, still, they are wrong to assume that everyone is like that.
There is a market for Radio One. But why are the numerous Radio One sound alikes and yet not one Global Radio?
Even in London Central, the house music stations that broadcast assume that we want to hear techno at 11am with constant references to the Wandsworth Massive.
Global plays all sorts of music during the day, and tend to up the tempo towards the evening, with presenters that respect the fact that we don't need them to talk all over the tracks with a ''faux cool accent''. The music is so good, sometimes in Ibiza I have trouble getting out of the car.
 
Ever so slightly off topic. Do you listen To IGR over the internet while in the uk ? Do you play it on the pc or have an internet radio ?

The reason I ask is the stations here on mainland Spain are complete gash also. Though I can pick up IGR when driving along the coast 8) And I want to purchase a radio with ipod dock for my kitchen, I'm thinking of getting an interent radio (works through the router apparently) instead of DAB, thougn am reading conflicting reports on line regarding signal loss etc etc.

Does anyone here have expereince of an internet radio ?

Sorry for hijacking the thread :confused: ;)
 
Haven't they (all the non-BBC FM stations) been taken over by a handful of parent companies on a mission to dilute everything in a neverending race to the middle of the road?

It's not the end of th world though - Sometimes I want a load of random 80's tracks not selected by me, and then for all other times there's the (sets downloaded from) internet.8)

I'm sure the only criteria Radio 1 presenters are selected on are how annoying their voices sound.:spank::D
 
I spy if you live in surrey have you tried point blank fm on 90.2 it's pretty good and you should be able to get it througout london and surrey.
 
Dan x said:
Haven't they (all the non-BBC FM stations) been taken over by a handful of parent companies on a mission to dilute everything in a neverending race to the middle of the road?

It's not the end of th world though - Sometimes I want a load of random 80's tracks not selected by me, and then for all other times there's the (sets downloaded from) internet.8)

I'm sure the only criteria Radio 1 presenters are selected on are how annoying their voices sound.:spank::D
Click to expand...

yeah, all the city/kiss style stations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauer_Radio
 
I miss radio

the pirates - flex, don, girls

early kiss - lindsay wesker, danny rampling, steve jackson, the 2 colins, "dangerous" dave pearce, sarah "HB"

radio 1 - pete tong when he was relevant, john peel playing happy hardcore straight after the smiths or something, the blue room

pat & mick hot mix on capital radio on friday nights - cheesy liebrand remixes of samantha fox amidst a tonne of mc hammer

jonathan pearce on capital gold having multiple orgasms whenever ANYONE scored a goal on saturday afternoons

the shipping forecast on radio 4 (or was it the world service?) whilst waiting for my dad to serve up dinner


but you move on though - my listening has changed so much since those days and on-demand means "tuning in" to anything is quite quaint now :D
 
radiobox app on the iphone... 10,000+ radio stations covering pretty much every country across the globe.

as an aside... used to love the old pirates... sweet, kool, sunrise, touch, phantasy, eruption (bit plastic), house etc. played on sweet (peshay & bukem made the odd appearance) & touch for several years.
 
Olly said:
I miss radio

the pirates - flex, don, girls

early kiss - lindsay wesker, danny rampling, steve jackson, the 2 colins, "dangerous" dave pearce, sarah "HB"

radio 1 - pete tong when he was relevant, john peel playing happy hardcore straight after the smiths or something, the blue room

pat & mick hot mix on capital radio on friday nights - cheesy liebrand remixes of samantha fox amidst a tonne of mc hammer

jonathan pearce on capital gold having multiple orgasms whenever ANYONE scored a goal on saturday afternoons

the shipping forecast on radio 4 (or was it the world service?) whilst waiting for my dad to serve up dinner


but you move on though - my listening has changed so much since those days and on-demand means "tuning in" to anything is quite quaint now :D
Click to expand...

steve jackson's breakfast show was very good... always got lambasted for completely ignoring the station's playlist & the early street boy antics were most amusing.
 
grego said:
yeah, all the city/kiss style stations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauer_Radio
Click to expand...

In the state's we've got Clear Channel and CBS/Infinity who basically control everything. Same bland programming everywhere. You'll always have a selection of:
1. the nostalgia station (best hits of the 80s and 90s.. sometimes 70s)
2. the "album rock" or "alternative rock" station (sometimes both)
3. the top 40 station
4. the country station
5. the talk radio station
6. the religious station
7. the latino station
8. the r&b/rap station

Basically impossible to listen any of it. :confused:

edit: almost forgot... there's always a "smooth jazz" station, which is among the worst of the bunch!
 
Sooooo...... Is there a gap in the market?
Could something exactly like Ibiza Global Radio broadcast nationally atract enough listeners to tempt the advertisers?
I think it would.

And, no, I'm not going to try and do it.
But I wish somebody would.
I feel sorry for the nation as a whole being dumbed down having to listen to idiotic presenters trying to be witty.

Brings to mind one of the presenters on TV a couple of days ago, she had obviously been fed this piece of trivia to say as if she had known it herself... '' Yes, it reminds me of Spike Millingan's epitaph which said ''I told you I was dead''''
The other presenter quickly cut in with '' Err , I think you will find it was ill, not dead''
 
I-Spy said:
I had to drive to the South Coast yesterday with only the car radio to listen to.
Click to expand...
We were over in England for a few days the other week and had to drive down to Portsmouth in a hire car. I got so fed up with the pop stations that I put the radio on Radio 4 some of the time and listened to plays instead.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top