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Comment by dreamcompiler | Hacker News Reader

I don't know if it's my imagination but I've noticed this with FM radio too. Sometimes I'll turn on the radio in the car because there's a local station that plays music I like, but it's become unlistenable because the ad:music ratio is about 50% now. And the ads seem to be mostly for things boomers might buy (like hearing aids, luxury cars, and blood pressure medicine), because of course everybody younger never listens to the radio.

FM radio is dead; it just doesn't know it yet.

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I still feel more connected to the world when I tune into some FM station than when I am listening to some Spotify playlist. Same with TV: even if I watch movies or series on streaming services, I still watch the news almost every day at 7PM and, during the day I do switch in and out some national news TV network. Both the TV and FM, even if flooded by ads, still make me feel connected to the world, while streaming services kind of put me in a bubble. Maybe it's worth also noting that in my country(EU member state) the ratio of ads to real program is limited and controlled by government. So stations cannot abuse it and take it to 50/50, the ads are limited to 20% duration (12 minutes every hour).

TV and FM ads are innocent children compared to the shameless promotions in youtube videos, for example, so I've learned to tolerate them, laugh at some of the worst ones, or just ignore/change station when I am not in the mood. TV is not dying in my house nor the radio in my car.

AM radio is even worse. It’s descent into fringe talk radio turned the ad side of the business into prostate pills and ads that are probably fake.

Radio used to mint money. I think what you’re seeing is the decline in the business led to consolidation, and now they are milking whatever they can get until they can sell the spectrum to someone.

It seems to me that AM still has an audience in people who are really into nutty conspiracy theories and/or religion. It might survive.

A number of times the past few years I have tried turning on the FM radio in my car just for old times sake, or if my phone is dead or something. A vast majority of the time, I will flip through all 6 programmed channels on my radio and every single one is on ad-break.

So I decide to sit on one that I'll just wait through... but then I realize I've sat there for what feels like 5+ minutes (longer than one average song) still being bombarded with ads and justifyingly so decide that radio is no longer for me, and so off it goes for another year.

FM radio probably knows it, but what are they going to do? Nobody is going to start listening if they reduced ads. Best course to just squeeze every last dime out of the current listeners until you can't turn a profit anymore.

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