I agree with whoever said they should adopt format of Alt 21 on Sirius satellite. I mostly listen to satellite now because it is WAY better and I LOVE Alt 21. They play new music about 3 months ahead of local stations and they have a ton of variety AND not a bunch of blabbering.
Wow. My own experience with Alt Nation is that a) it plays "new music" for only a couple weeks after a single drops, and then drops the single completely for the next new release and b) jabbers almost incessantly. (Not quite to the level of, say, Sirius Hits 1, but pretty bad when compared to a typical terrestrial alt station.) As far as the "variety", it plays a few dozen older songs in any given week and plays them heavily for a couple weeks before being dumped as another handful of older tracks comes in and has the &%#@ played out of it for a couple weeks, lather, rinse, repeat.
The problem, beyond the shallowness and the sense of ahistory inherent in the format, is that the people most inclined to
want to hear a heavy dose of new alt are the same people that get that entirely from music downloads. They don't listen to FM (they barely listen to satrad) and aren't going to move the FM ratings needle in a positive direction no matter how much or how sincerely you reach out to them.
The people driving rock ratings now are the (almost typed "25" here, but that's too low a number as many years as we are into iPod Nation) 30-50 crowd. They want to hear the music of their youth and, maybe, an occasional new tune from -- or in the style of -- the bands they loved as kids. Alt as a mainstream format can't survive on new music. It can just barely (if that) tolerate it.
