9 out of 10 monkeys believe they are not behind glass

From here:

So bored consumers are just tuning out. Listenership among 18- to 24-year-olds is down 20 percent over the past decade. Stations have responded not with bold programming but by cutting costs. They’ve also expended considerable resources to squelch competition from low-powered FM stations and Internet radio. Not that it has helped — 85 percent of teenagers now discover new music through sources beyond the FM dial. Even the biggest radio fans envision a grim future for the medium. One bright spot: The inevitable shift to digital radio could create more room for more types of content.

Ain’t that the truth? The only radio I listen to is NPR on AM. Other than that – it is all via the Internet, Pandora, suggestion lists, Amazon… or whatever is hot on bittorrent.

I found Guano Apes that way, through a hot bittorrent. A German band from the 90′s – never heard of them before, but downloaded it anyway. And they freaking rock.

But for a guy that used to buy every CD he liked, I have found that CD’s just can’t hold my attention anymore. It takes too much effort (and money!) to find what I like in huge bins of plain analogue discs in some huge mega store recalling some vague snippet of music I heard on a twist of the radio dial.

Don’tcha know?

There are better ways to find good local music. Or independent music. And radio just is not it.