I much prefer good radio to portable players, but it's hard to find good radio. Mostly I like hearing how good DJs put together playlists, and hearing songs that I don't know or wouldn't have thought of together. It's like a conversation rather than a monologue.

Thought I think it's partly also because I have a slightly compulsive need not to shut myself off completely from the world during daylight hours; I want to know if there's some sort of major world event happening and I guess I figure that if I'm either listening to broadcast radio or tv or on the internet or else able to hear the people around me (that is, not wearing headphones), then I won't miss any sort of evacuation plans for the apocalypse. So, iPod without also being online makes me anxious, where radio would not.

This is the same reason I can't nap during the day unless I have the television on.

Anyway. That may be a bit more idiosyncratic than most, but yes, I like the radio.

I have this but I get a different sense of why it is. Radio and TV give me a sense of it being live right now, even when I know it isn't. Recorded TV/radio, podcasts, etc. have a canned/stale feeling or a sense of not-quite-reality for me. Purely psychological. I listen to mostly FM radio on my portable player. People growing up nowadays where alternatives to 'live' radio and TV probably don't get this sense.

Hmmm... the "live" element is not something I've considered, but it makes sense. Still, let's take this a little further into something that's "live," but pre-recorded.

Sometimes over a holiday, a radio station will run a pre-programmed event, like the "Top 100 Classic Rock Songs of All Time." Even though I know what they're likely to include in it, chances are I don't know _all_ of the songs. Furthermore, I don't know the order since I didn't create the list, so each song is a surprise. A lot of times, too, a song will appear on this list that's not in a regular playlist. So, I get to hear something I haven't heard in awhile.

I suspect that if I created my own top 100 list, which sounds like a chore in and of itself, I would know the exact position of each song and none of it would be a surprise.

So, I guess even with things that are pre-recorded there is still some sense of discovery, even if the next song is one you've heard a million times before.

I adore radio. I'm kind of a geek about it. There are a few things that make radio different, to my mind, than listening via iPod or stereo. (I should clarify that I'm talking about good radio, which is harder to find in this homogenized world, but does exist - relying on your community station, local NPR affiliate, college stations, and other listener-supported stations or locally-owned stations. I'm also a fan of streaming great stations online from wherever their broadcast originates).

a. Serendipity. You program your own iPod, and though you certainly get sort-of surprises now and then, you're not really in someone else's hands. With radio, you actually don't know what's coming up, and chances are a lot higher that it's something you weren't expecting, hadn't heard before, or never expected to hear again.

b. Relationship with host or DJ. You are essentially connecting with a personality when you listen to a radio show. And it's an extremely intimate connection. They're right there with you as you drive, work, wake up in the morning. One neat thing I learned from broadcasting training is that the sound of radio voices are more intimate for a reason: our brains are trained to perceive intimacy when a voice sounds like it's originating very close to our ear, as in a personal whisper. A radio DJ speaks into a mike only centimeters from their lips. The quality of a radio voice, then, isn't hollow and echoey like the voices of people in a room with us (like coworkers) are. Instead, they're closer to the way we experience the voice of someone whose head is on the pillow next to you. So you end up feeling kind of personally addressed.

c. Contemporaneousness. Sure, some shows are pre-produced. But they're scheduled to broadcast on a certain day. There's an audience hearing the show along with you. You're part of an invisible community of listeners, each experiencing the same sounds in a personal way, but all together at once. And, "archive editions" aside, the topicality of radio is awesome - I'm pretty sure I learn more from radio than any other single source, and the most valuable stuff I learn is about stuff going on right now- current events, weather, politics, trends, new music releases, new books, fresh ideas, etc.

d. Usability - I don't have to fuss with the radio. I turn it on, I tune it. I don't have to assemble playlists and obsess over genre tagging. It plays itself and I'm freed of the need to manage it, other than choosing the station. The equipment it requires is simple, cheap, and ubiquitous. I can have radio at home, at work, in the car, and in the yard. I can hear it without cutting myself off from the world around me (no earbuds needed). Unlike with TV or video, I can take in sophisticated information while still having my hands free to do stuff and my body free to move around, cook, make stuff, clean the house, drive, whatever.

Radio is just awesome.

Basically, I think Rush got it right.

To show you how I stand on this, I immediately read your post as Radio being a new iPod-like product. My first thought was, "I have to check this out! My downloads aren't holding up from iTunes purchases! How cool that they named an MP3 Player after the radio!"

Ahem.

I rarely listen to the radio anymore - in fact, if I'm not in a car, never. I prefer podcasts, internet-streaming sites, blogs, and the ADD thrill of the :30 second iTunes crawl for new music.

I like college radio stations, and internet radio, and podcasts and playlists, for many of the same reasons Miko has mentioned.

On the other hand, I love listening to albums as a whole entity, too. I almost never use an mp3 player in "Random" mode - even for parties, 'Dude and I will usually sit down and make a playlist (unless we're really really short on time).

Furthermore, I don't much like commercial radio, because the commercials irritate me.

Every ten years or so I give commercial pop radio a listen and each time I am amazed at how little that garbage has changed since the mid-60s. Of each year's top 100, two or three may deserve a second listen. Even Britney has some damn good songs, but they aren't the ones getting airplay.

I rather like stuff that I think most would consider pretty banal. I like Classic Rock and Funk/Soul. All of that stuff, at least as far as over-the-air radio is concerned, is going to be on commercial airwaves.

The commercials can be irritating, but that's why I typically have three or four stations on presets. I can go back and forth. Although, they are getting remarkably better at being on break simultaneously! ;-)

I didn't mention the excellent classic rock station I listen to when NPR is being a downer - 104.5 KZEP. But I like it because the DJs seem to have a lot of sway over what's played, even though it's owned by Clear Channel.

Good radio DJs are pretty rare these days. Like mudgirl said, I like it when the DJ plays what she/he likes and not what some national playlist optimizing software decided should be played. Our local non-NPR public music station WYEP is pretty good; from what I understand they split the playlist up into thirds. One third current tracks that the station is pushing, one third of any tracks from their list of standard artists and then the last third is whatever the DJ wants.

Unfortunately, the radio reception in my house sucks. Some combination of being in a valley, having foot thick brick walls or 138 years of lead-based paint keeps us out of radio range. The internet stream works well but it seems dumb since the transmitter is only about 1.5 miles away.

I used to love Ethyl, Fred and Lucy on XM Radio. Now they I have Sirius and their versions it isn't the same but does beat the hell out of commercial radio.

Over Christmas week I was on a long road trip and heard this great cover of a Smith's song that I would have never heard of it if wasn't for a show on SiriusXM U station called Blog Radio where they have a some music bloggers host shows.

I had to rent a car a few months back without satellite radio or a jack to plug in my iPhone. I thought I was going to die with all of the commercials.

Radio Milwaukee has introduced me to a bunch of music I wouldn't have found otherwise (especially hip hop), though the quality of the program definitely depends on the DJ. It really filled my radio void after the election started/I took a very long break from NPR.