Comments on: Shuffle FM

By: SFBlue

SFBlue — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 03:41:21 +0000

The “we play whatever we feel like” Bay Area station to which Tom is referring is also MaxFM at 95.7. Not bad for background music when you’ve exhausted the iPod and in-car CD collection and they promise you won’t hear the same song repeated on the same day. The same promise doesn’t stretch to the same week, though. I heard “Pour Some Sugar On Me” three times last week!

By: Jacob

Jacob — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 21:37:34 +0000

This format started up around five years ago, I believe. It’s really just a new version of “adult contemporary” that plays less ballads and is meant to appeal to people in their 30s.

By: Pat Collins

Pat Collins — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 22:36:47 +0000

We have just become a victim of this soulless radio in Pittsburgh. It’s called Bob FM as others have mentioned. Personally, it replaced my favorite classic rock station, and I am very mad about it.
So mad, in fact, that I have started a web site about it: bobfmsucks.com.
Peace,
Pat

By: Rabbott

Rabbott — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 18:21:20 +0000

I live in East Lansing Michigan; we have the same station here but its ’101.7 Mike Radio’. What a terrible station. It was bad back when it was Z-101.7, but I still had it in my presets, not anymore! Thanks Mike…

By: WeeBee

WeeBee — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 08:50:48 +0000

Joining the chorus of “We have one here, too”, I’ll pass along that “we have one here, too” in Albuquerque: “Ed”. Started out as “Fred”, got into some licensing fray, then slightly renamed.
I’m of two minds on this topic: I really hate to see automated stations cut out broadcasts by and with actual people. Although typically I’d refrain from saying “Soulless”, it has to be true here, as what can be more soulless than some automated, randomized song-spewer?
Well, I’ll tell you what: something that should have a soul, but doesn’t. Can you say Clearchannel? Most of the stations around here are owned by ClearChannel, or another large media corporation. So, there is very little interesting going on musically on commercial radio. At least with “Ed”, I know it’ll be a few days before I hear the same song again.
The few quasi-independent stations are either so low-powered as to be non-functioning, or have their head stuck up their pretentious arse so far, positively basking in PC-ness or some misguided need to be hipster-cool, that they are much too annoying for listening.
Thank God for mp3 players …

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 18:58:00 +0000

They started JACK FM in Baltimore, MD… I refuse to listen to it, since they took away one of the most popular Morning Shows in Maryland (one that actually had live traffic information via helicopters(!) as well as good humor) simply because it was an oldies station. Can’t find anything close for my commute, now.
It got a lot of backlash, but it’s one of those things that the “people” just can’t do anything about. Gah, corporate America.
I think the “we play what *we* want” is offensive – how about playing what *I* want? In any case, I listen to the radio for a reason … and that reason is generally tied to the radio personalities as well as the music. If I just wanted music, I’d pop in a CD or flip the station (I’m a notorious channel flipper). Otherwise, I want traffic, or humor, or information in addition to music.

By: Gord

Gord — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 19:12:44 +0000

Born in Vancouver, Canada, the Jack FM format has a pretty good write-up over at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_FM
It’s now about 3 years old here and has very annoying TV ads.

By: Creativerse

Creativerse — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 22:03:22 +0000

Wow…how crazy. I live in Houston, but went to school in San Marcos, so I listen to BobFM from time to time. Truth is, I thought it was pretty cool until I read this post. Kind of like Juke Box Roulette. You just never know what you are going to get.
Now, it just seems like some lame marketing gimmick.
Now, it’s funny because 103.5 used to be an entirely different station (oldies maybe…out of San Antonio?)

By: gozomj

gozomj — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 06:56:45 +0000

The Chicago area has both 9 FM (on 3 frequencies) that claims "We play anything," and Jack FM that goes by the motto "We play what we want."

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 07:00:35 +0000

Like someone said before, Jack FM 104.1 in Minneapolis, and their slogan is “A bunch of songs in a row.” Now their commercials go on forever when they play them, and ‘Jack’ does talk between each song (although it is just a recorded message, where they have no DJ) but I personally love the sation. Now I hate rap, and well, they haven’t played any. All they really play is songs that no one else plays, like old songs from the 60′s-now, except no the mainstreem ones, or songs whitch used to be mainstreem, along with other songs whitch never hit it big. But Jack is a station whitch I never change from. They play all the songs whitch I like, and well, they do open me up to songs whitch i have never discoverd before. My only big problem is that I never know the name of or the band whitch plays the song. But its good. I like it, but its not for everyone.