Stodge.org

Slashdot and SFGate are both covering a new feature of the new Microsoft music service that has the ability to ‘mimic’ local radio stations. All you do is choose the name of your favourite local station from a pop-down, and MS Media Player re-creates that station’s play-list minus adverts, weather, news, branding and DJ Prattle.

Of course the radio industry are profoundly upset; but what can they do? American radio stations are so heavily ‘formatted’ that their service is easy to automate. Infact, since most US radio stations follow a number of quite well-defined playlist formats, Microsoft have demonstrated how easily those formats can be cloned and improved. If the radio stations were doing anything that was even vaugely unique and imaginative then microsoft would not have been able to do the exact same thing with such ease.

In my opinion this sort of thing should be encouraged; the invention of the formatted radio station herralded the death of independant local broadcasting. If formatted radio becomes economically unviable because of the sheer force of competition from Microsoft and other online broadcasters then we might see a return to original, inventive use of media.

I think I will stick with Resonance FM for now.