pave wrote:(As an aside: Blow that all-request thingy out the back door. It's patronizing to the greatest number of audience at any given time. And if someone flips out over hearing their favourite played on the Radio, should we also trust them with car keys?)
I can tell you as the PD for an all-request music service for entertainment centers, that people DO in fact "flip out" over hearing their favourite song played on the "radio", as well as over hearing their name or voice (remember, the public still actually believes, to a point, that radio people are kind of famous, just a more approchable type of famous than an actual celebrity).
That said, it's certainly not going to save terrestrial radio. Letting the public program a radio station is dangerous, because people don't know what they want, and no one wants the same thing. One person would love to hear 3 ACDC songs back to back. Another will turn the station if they hear the intro to "Back in Black". In fact, I don't think music is the answer in general. Look at the highest rated shows in the US. Do you think any station that's playing a few top 40 songs is hitting 10 - 15 million listeners? No, because who cares? You can download songs, listen to them on an iPod, use Pandora or YouTube to select songs to listen to... music is not nearly as engaging as talk, but it's going to have to be either interesting or controversial like the top rated American personalities are. And it can't be something like Alan Cross, I don't know too many people that religiously tune into Alan Cross on the radio, they just download all his stuff on demand. That does NOTHING for the stations. Exclusive content to the radio station that's engaging, that would be a start. Why do I care if a radio station is playing the new Katy Perry song? I can listen to it any time of day the way the internet is, no chance I'm going to wait around to listen to it on the radio (no chance I was going to go out of my way to hear a Katy Perry song at any time but it's just an example). Others have mentioned talent is the answer, they're right. If not pure "talk", then just announcers that are more engaging than what's out there right now, really putting on a "show".