Ask HN: Do you listen to radio? Will it survive?

Listening to the radio - that's what cars are for.

Mind (in this context) I have the misfortune to live in the UK where music radio stations seem to think that their output should be constant banal chatter from a "DJ" with just the occasional tune slung in when they run out of things to jabber about.

I am always glad when I visit the USA and can find so many music stations - ones that actually play music.

I listen to many hours of radio every day.

I listen to BBC Radio 4; 4 extra; 6 music; and the World Service. I also listen to podcasts of some international stations. (Not as much now that "this american life" is available on 4extra).

People might be interested in the archive of content on the BBC websites. "In Our Time" is especially good.

Radio serves the purpose of being one of the only freely available wireless com networks. For this reason I think radio will be around for a while (will almost definitely out live cable television).

Listen to radio everyday. Never on an actual radio, though.

Only in my car on my rather short commute. I only take in about 30 minutes of the programs/songs in a session.

It still seems very natural to me to listen in the car. Flipping it on at home seems a bit odd to me though.

I think of the radio similar to television. For example, I can have any tv show and movie at my finger tips, but sometimes it's nice just to turn on the tv. There's something enjoyable about letting someone else make the choice. It's the same reason you might have a DVD library collecting dust, but you get excited when one of your DVD's appears on television. You just push a button, no decision of which movie to watch, and no taking time to setup a DVD.

It's similar with the radio. Any song or album is available online, but sometimes I just want to listen to music, without finding a new playlist every hour, or switching songs constantly. Music streaming services online have this covered to some extent, but there's something comforting about a box that's sole purpose is to play music, and that's where the radio comes in.

Imagine if you had a box next to you, and all it had was a volume knob and 8 buttons, each for a different genre of music. You push classic rock, and it just starts playing a non-stop stream. Get bored with it? Switch to electronic. Your only choice is which genre, and how loud. No sign-up, no advertisements, no accounts to manage, no downtime, no social media, etc.

I listen to NPR, but the podcast versions of NPR shows are rapidly replacing the FM version of NPR for me.

Comedy on Radio4 is the only thing I seek out. Other than that it fills the quiet, or the noise of transport. Radio is cheap, and the lines between internet and traditional radio are blurred much more so than with TV (for one, there's no difference - FM is about 96kps and internet radio is around that for 3G and more for wifi).

I think that radio advertisements work better than TV ads for the reason that they're pretty geographically targeted. It's a good way to advertise when you want to reach a city-sized area but not target a whole state or region. As long as the ads work, and people keep listening, the business model should be sustainable. Also, how else are you going to tune in to Rush Limbaugh?

The radio (in it's traditional sense) has no chance of survival. It's only lifeline is people listening to it in cars but even that won't last. If I'm in the mood for listening to music I can pick my own songs or use a service that creates customized playlists and listen to them without sitting through 10 minutes of ads every three songs. The whole idea of radio stations is old-fashioned and if it was pitched today it would be laughed at by every VC in the room. Maybe I'm being too harsh on it, but that's just my opinion that I've formed over many years of trying to find something good on the radio in the car.

Radio has a lock on the people in cars market, and I don't see how that could change.

Radio also has much lower costs than TV.