Ray wrote
This morning I was just scouting around and came across theguitarshow.com and I wondered if anyone here has given this a go. Actually I'm quite keen to know if anyone listens to any music shows online. there sure as hell isnt any local radio station that I can think of listening to.
Me three. SAFM used to be a minor miracle with a great mix of shows and music (especially Richard Haslop's show on Wednesday nights). It's just a teensy bit better on the weekends. A few years ago they fired a DJ from a jazz show for playing Charlie Parker ? and it's been all down hill ever since. But I don't want to pick on that station exclusively. Everything seems bought and pre-paid these days. Every joke sounds like a commercial, all the music (when they have it) is very carefully programmed with no sense of adventure or discovery (like you used to get on Chris Prior's late night show on 5FM for example). Even Classic FM is buxy diluting itself by increasingly playing "easy listening" music (I find it quite hard going, but I'm hardly the average listener).
Classic FM do do good traffic reports and do it properly with a break signal sent just before the alerts. You can set the TA feature on your car system on, put on a CD of your choice and the player will stop half way through that Gilmour solo you love so much so that you catch the report of how the traffic lights on Witkoppen road are actually working.
Meh.
Enough of that.
Having done a lot of driving around the UK the last few years I'm not convinced that most of the overseas radio is much better (though the Beeb still allow some niche shows by the likes of Tom Robinson and Bob Harris - though not during peak listening hours). In the USA it's pretty dire, though they do have the excellent NPR (which has a web site with some great streamed music shows).
Now enough of that REALLY.
The future really is Internet stations and podcasts and the sort of pay/satellite services that they have in the USA (you can't get the receivers here, and I don't know if you could buy a subscription or do anything useful with it).
I really should get a better performing connection at home and listen to NPR or Wolfgang's Vault more often. Yeah... there must be more, but just with those two you'd be opening up considerable treasure troves.
