It’s a Topic about Radio Stations from the United States of America and Canada, Discuss them here.
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Do you want to start? You created the topic I can only assume you have something to say on it?
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Well all I can say is that they are generally much better than here 
LA in particular has some awesome stations - The Wave, The Sound, KOST, KOLA and K-Earth. Love them all. Particularly a fan of The Wave.
Toronto in Canada as well, with CHUM and CHFI are some of the best examples of their type.
Winnipeg, which is much smaller has 2 really good rock stations as well - CITI and Power 97. Winnipeg is smaller than Adelaide yet if you look at the variety they have on commercial FM compared to any Australian city and it’s depressing!
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New York City has Z100, KTU, Lite FM, Q104.3 and Power 105.1. Much Better Quality Music there.
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I’ve been listening to 106.7 Lite Fm on iHeartRadio, it’s good.
Probably NYC’s Answer to Smooth
And Pure Gold.
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Lite FM isn’t really anything like Smooth Fm. It is a lot brighter and plays a much bigger variety of music including more contemporary music. I would say the closest match in metro radio in Australia would be 97.3 in Brisbane.
Really?
In what what are US stations better than Australian stations?
I’ve lived in the US over ten years. In LA and NYC.
I find the radio stations here to be so dated in format, sound, branding and marketing. They play only US music.
Australian stations I find play a better mix of US, UK and Oz music. Shows have much better production values and standards. And the branding in Australia and marketing is streets ahead of the US
Even the Ryan seacrest show feels a bit ameatuer and unslick compared to Australian programming. Us radio is so tame and safe.
What makes the average US station better than the average Aussie one in your opinion?
To each their own but I found them the exact opposite to what you just said.
You can’t be serious about them only playing American music for a start. I heard more INXS and British new romantic stuff there than I ever do here.
I found a much greater variety of music and just better song selection overall. Look at The Wave playlist for example. I think the song selection is streets ahead of the bland and predictable playlists here.
I also found the overall sound of the stations were slicker and especially the advertising not as jarring.
Everyone is different. But I have the exact opposite opinion.
I guess I was referring too everything around the songs. The hosts, morning shows, drive shows, contests, IDs, branding - I think are all much higher standard in Australia.
Playlists - I think it’s too personal a taste thing for me to comment
I know US stations run on a budget a fraction of what Aussie stations run on - the market is so fragmented in the US - a station is lucky to get a 1% share,.
For me it was the playlists that really stood out.
I found the hosts and morning shows a lot less intrusive (i.e. more low key), at least on the AC stations which I prefer personally.
The fragmented market is certainly true, but I think the benefit of that is that stations are a bit more niche but at the same time are forced to be a bit more adventurous and take more care with song selection.
I also really did find the advertising easier to listen to - with a lot fewer annoying ads like Harvey Norman and National Tiles…
It’s a personal taste thing but I found I could listen a lot longer to commercial FM there. I think stations like KOST, K-Earth and The Wave really do capture something about the vibe of Southern California too. They make you feel like you’re in Southern California, where I find the stations here make you feel like you could be anywhere, no sense of location or feel. Particularly the national drive time shows in Australia just leave me cold.
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Art Bell has died aged 72 at his home in Nevada.
Art was the founding host of Coast To Coast AM, an overnight radio show with a focus on the paranormal and conspiracy theories. Art hosted the show until 2002. The show is still heard in most US and Canadian markets with host George Noory.
Since leaving Coast To Coast, Art returned to radio many times including stints as a fill-in host on Coast To Coast (which he often did while living in the Phillipines) and more recent forays in to both satellite and terrestrial radio. His most recent return to radio was to launch a competitor to Coast To Coast called Midnight In The Desert which he hosted from his home in Nevada. This show is still going, hosted by Heather Wade.
More details: Las Vegas Review Journal
Edit: Current Coast To Coast AM host George Noory postponed a scheduled guest on yesterday’s show so that the last two hours could be spent remembering Art Bell and allowing callers to reminisce. I suspected they had done this but couldn’t confirm it earlier as the website hadn’t updated with details or the podcast of yesterday’s show. Coast’s website has a brief memorial article about Art here.
It is also notable that Premiere Radio Network syndicates a weekly replay of an old Coast To Coast AM hosted by Art titled as “Somewhere in time with Art Bell”. Many of Coast’s 500 or so live affiliates also carry this show on the weekend.
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With a VPN I can Listen to Radio Disney Which they would Geo-Block it to those outside the United States And it’s Territories Without a VPN.
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Yes. I’ve found Radio Disney only plays properly on iHeartRadio if you use a US VPN, otherwise it won’t play or you get a recorded message playing over the music.
Most of Alpha Media’s stations do that too. KXL Portland for example has a recorded message on loop for international connections. And some of the former CBS stations won’t connect at all such as KXNT Las Vegas. Beasley seem to block sometimes and not others. KDWN Las Vegas is sporadic like that.
Well, I was sad to read this.
Legendary San Francisco rock station 104.5 KFOG is no more.
As of September 6 this year, it has become a sports/talk station.
I fondly recall being in San Fran in 1991 listening to some great blues/rock on that station.
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Hopefully Russell and Adam are not consulting!
Has anyone heard of Crap From The Past? It’s a radio show for “people who know a lot about music” which has an open-source feel (it also archives itself on archive.org), as it always changes station and host but the format usually remains the same (unless you add listener-grabbing segments like the “God-Awful Medley Of The Week” from the mid-2000s).
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Sure have! It’s one of my favourite shows. I’ll let Ron know he’s made Mediaspy.
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