Radio certainly has changed in recent years. I hear total listenership is way down. I note on weekends ,many AM stations have program length infomercial programs, selling vitamins, financial planning services, legal advice, or other products.
And FM music channels tend to play the same songs over and over. Oldies type stations play the same few hundred oldies over and over, rather than most of the thousands of top 40 hits from the past few decades. I personally would listen more to the music stations if they had some more variety.
The local NPR station here is fantastic. I hardly hear the same song twice. Never any “classic” anything. It’s all what was long ago called “underground” stuff.
Obscure to mainstream but very successful within their genre musicians. Some of it is crap but for the most part it’s original and enjoyable.
There's a simple reason why FM music channels tend to play the same songs repeatedly: The corporate giants that own these radio stations also own the record labels for the artists whose music they're playing repetitively.
All of these media companies and their various subsidiaries are cutting their high-paid personalities loose because they can't afford to pay them anymore in this new business climate.
I wonder how this bankruptcy filing might impact existing the existing contracts iHeartRadio has with big names in the radio business.