Radio Redundancy

The other day I was talking to an old co-worker from my time in radio. Now, he's still hanging in there, trying to make it in that industry, whereas I have pretty much decided to work in other fields from here on out. But, we got to talking about why radio seems to be on a downhill slide. He blames the iPod, where people can listen to whatever they want whenever they want and specialised satellite radio stations on which people can get a specific type of music that is commercial free. Personally, I have a different theory: radio doesn't play enough different music. It seems like every music station simply has a four hour music loop that they constantly turn over and that is all you hear.

On the way into Boston the other day I paused on the local hip-hop channel and heard Young Money's catchy diddy, "Bedrock." Not my favorite song, so I moved on. Not four hours later as I was leaving the city I turn the station back on and was greeted by the exact same song, at almost the exact same point. Now, I would have given them some credit if it was at least a different remix, but it wasn't. I know these radio stations have huge libraries to work with, you mean to tell me that you can't come up with four hours worth of music? I don't care how popular a song might be on any given day, that doesn't mean you have to cave to the requests and put it on such a tight loop. You could get away with it coming on every six hours just as easily. This is why I stopped listening to radio - not enough variety.

-Since I'm in the mood to tell money-making companies what they should do differently, let's address the owners of Arizona Ice Tea. Recently I was given a case of Arizona's Arnold Palmer Ice Tea/Lemonade Mix, cause my mom is just that awesome. Now, before drinking this great concoction the can reminds you that you are supposed to shake it up thoroughly. That's fine, only it creates a foamy head that explodes when you open the can right away. In addition, if you buy the jug of Arnold Palmer mix, it is so full you can't actually stir it, because there is no room for the drink to move (I know, tough problem to have). Now, I know they tell you to shake it up because between bottling and transporting the drinks, contents can settle. Today I offer a solution to them: buy trucks with bad shocks. Sure the drivers might not be happy, but it would solve the "shake before drinking" problem. You're welcome.