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Comment by snakeyjake | Hacker News Reader

No FM radio station outside of a college campus has ever succeeded without ads and any form of media that I cannot pay for and receive ad-free is trash to me.

And as far as college radio goes, I'm don't need a new pothead to tell me how revolutionary Kind of Blue is every time the old one graduates.

Even public radio has ads. They use a fancy word instead of "ads" though back when I dumped any form of media from which I could not banish ads Archer Daniels Midland was one of public radio's largest sponsors... for... reasons.

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> No FM radio station outside of a college campus has ever succeeded without ads and any form of media that I cannot pay for and receive ad-free is trash to me.

Quite a few public radio stations in Europe don't have ads. They're paid by taxes and you receive them ad-free.

In the US there is a requirement to make “public service announcements” every so often. Most of them are pre-written in a book by the board and you just read them.

I found one about the nutritional benefits of pork rinds and another about the versatility and utility of duct tape and just read those. Many of them were clearly commercial in nature. I forget if we were allowed to make our own.

I recently discovered an independent station in my town that has no ads, and real local DJs that play whatever the hell they feel like. I assume it's run as a labor of love. The music is refreshingly diverse. Deep cuts, artists I've never heard of, and popular songs from long ago that don't easily fit into a genre like "classic rock."

"And as far as college radio goes, I'm don't need a new pothead to tell me how revolutionary Kind of Blue is every time the old one graduates."

lol. yes. I am a dj on college radio and i hear & see this all the time. It's mildly amusing, but it also makes me the "wierd critical guy," because I have a deeper knowledge of music than them.

But you might be missing the fact that college radio isn't all college students. It's just public radio.

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