If radio wasn’t loaded with ads for the dumbest shit possible, I’d prefer radio to everything else.
I’m going to use this as a jumping off point to mention the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act.
It’s… pretty much what it says on the tin. Some car manufacturers are phasing out AM Radio from their cars so they can replace them with their own streaming services - this bill seeks to make them a mandatory feature.
As somebody whose day job is in radio, I totally agree that the amount of ads and the quality of the ads is ridiculous. Personally, I don’t find radio to be an amazing source of political news broadcasting.
But do you know what it is really good at? Providing emergency broadcasts during extreme weather events.
I want to make it clear I’m not an expert in this legislation or anything - this is just the stuff I know through working in the industry.
Supporting measures like this is super important. There’s a huge push in multiple industries right now to out lifesaving alerts behind a fucking paywall (see how the NWS got banned from making their own free app and how one weather app only pushed weather alerts to subscribers).
I worked in emergency management for a while and they will literally bring in people to set up makeshift radio stations in an ongoing emergency to get information out. They cannot do the same for internet when I was last in the loop on that.
Also if you don’t like the ads on radio - try non commercial radio. Public radio and college radio both have fewer ads in my experience. And often include sponsorship reads from places that are local to you.
