Last Updated on: 9th July 2020, 03:01 pm
A question for anyone who knows anything about or regularly listens to FM96. Short of the morning show that Corus has started syndicating to other cities so that they can get rid of even more people, does this station employ any actual, honest to god, real live human beings anymore?
When I lived in the area and listened all the time, there were loads of them. The overnight shifts weren’t live as was the case with weekend evenings, but other than that, there were people you came to feel like you knew and could even talk to if you picked up the phone and called in.
But now, if I happen to be in somebody’s house or car or I get the urge to load up the stream, things are totally different. If it’s not the morning show, it’s either something syndicated, something quite obviously voicetracked often by somebody also working at another station, repackaged reruns of the morning show or just the computer running on autopilot with a mix of music and commercials.
The music, I should point out, is still pretty good. When I do listen I can generally stay tuned in for a while. But nearly every bit of personality the station used to have is totally gone, and that sucks. I know that this is becoming more and more the case with music radio all the time and that it’s not changing, but that doesn’t mean it’s ever going to stop making me sad and angry.
Personalities are what draw people to radio, sometimes even more so than the music. They hook you in and keep you coming back. It’s always been that way, and it will always be that way. Nobody has ever gotten amped up and excited over a static filled Spotify with ads. If we want to listen to a Spotify with ads, we have one. It’s called Spotify, and it has a much bigger playlist than you do and charges the same price. I wish all of these big companies that have been buying up all of the radio stations in the world and doing their best to ruin them by running them as cheaply as possible would take a second to care about their assets and realize this. Centralization and homogenization may get the job done, but if it’s a shitty job, who cares?
And one more thing about FM96 specifically before I go. Those “established in 1948, here’s another FM96 original” IDs you’re running. I have a problem with those. Admittedly it’s maybe a silly problem, but it’s still a problem. If you’re referencing 1948 and telling me I’m about to hear an original, why do you then proceed to play a song from like 1987? You’re lying to me, and I find that irritating. Almost as irritating as listening to stations that have been stripped of much of what made them great, in fact.