Another interesting thing mentioned in the article you may want to watch for is how many of the new releases today that are chart topping are from bands that started in the 90’s. At the time the article came out Beck, NIN, and Green Day were all the chart toppers in rock.

As far as WCCC goes I agree they are much better than others I’ve heard. I can tell you though that it is not that easy to just call or email & get them to play something new. I also made a suggestion to them to start something new with letting people call in at a certain time & request bands they’ve found on myspace! They said if/when their HOMEGROWN(local bands they play/promo weekly) gets old they will consider it.
They have been playing Fair to Midland for quite sometime now though. The often find a few newer bands & tend to stick with playing them. They are NON CORPORATE!

I agree that BIPOLAR is a great band! I found them/or they found me on myspace. Can’t remember which. Loved them @ first listen.

Dealing with mostly bands & musicians on myspace though…I can say there are many many that aren’t even signed that sound as good or better than what is being played on the radio day in day out.

There are some stations that do both play the older music and the new music (actual new music)

As an example, listen to LiVE 88.5 – The NEW Alternative.
It’s in Ottawa, Canada.
You can stream it live off the internet, visit http://www.livelifelive.fm
I promise you that you will hear new artists, and new music, as well as some of the older “classic” alternative songs/artists.

The best reason to keep listening to the radio is for the local aspect.
If you tune into your favorite satellite station, you won’t hear the weather, or why certain roads are closed etc.
This is why terrestrial radio will always be a mainstay, if anything, then for the local content.

Alternative rock stations (the ones that play modern rock with emo/pop-punk/etc.) have succeeded where modern rock has failed. The format may have the same model (corporate-based playlists), but many do play newer artists at the least. Some devote time slots for new bands, obscure songs, local bands, etc.

Satellite radio helps because satellite rock stations will play songs that were never released as singles (as an ironic example, a friend once mentioned how amazing it was to hear Soundgarden’s “Rhinosaur” on Sirius’s Octane).

But satellite still takes its playlist mainly from well-known labels and bands who still have name recognition but are no longer mainstream (Sevendust, Ra for examples).

My main sources to find new music these days are from radio add lists and the Internet.

The add lists will generally show famous bands and then unknown bands* whose songs are either discarded or put on the graveyard shift. (*anyone heard of Fair To Midland, for example?).

It was online that I stumbled on Bipolar, an unsigned New York band who, to me, sounds much better than a lot of new bands to mainstream radio.

The sad truth is: if you want to listen to new music (or “new to you” music), don’t listen to the radio.

The average radio listener stays with the same station for approx. 15-20 minutes; essentially during their commute. So rotations are frequent, again to play the songs the majority of the target audience would listen to. The days of the PD who actually chooses music based solely on gut instinct are esentially gone, unless you count college and independent radio stations. (Those stations usually have little to no marketing budget, so they don’t have the name recognition needed to show up in a Arbitron survey, which means low ratings and ad revenue.) Big companies utilize research across all formats in their stable, so similar playlists in different markets are no surprise.

A company must be able to make money on it’s product to cover expenses. With the elimination of “pay for play” and access to the deep pockets of the record labels, the only way to make money is to mass market to the widest audience. Deeper rock cuts cater to a niche target, and would therefore cause some listeners to change the channel, lowering ratings and ad prices, and revenue.

Once Arbitron’s new personal people meters are widely in use, the actual listening habits of normal people will be evident and radio formats be created to provide what we really want to listen to, not what a midwestern focus group thinks a 25-54 year old male would like to listen to.

Stations need to get more variety overall. Even with the 90s rock they play the same songs over and over, there are so many different 90s songs and artists that they could play. Playing 90s rock is ok, but at least have variety. Playing the same 3 AIC and Soundgarden songs is just rediculous, there are so many other songs even by those same bands that could be played. Instead of “Man In A Box”, just play “Nutshell” or “We Die Young” every once in a while. They also need to stop playing “Pain/The Pretender/Fake It…” every hour and play different new music. There are so many great new bands that cant seem to get any radio play (The Accident Experiment, Hourcast…along with many more).

There are a few stations that still know how to mix it up with a wide variety of great tunes (WCCC in Hartford and WJJO in Madison are 2 examples) but the majority of stations need major reform.