Ever since moving back to Montreal, I have basically stopped listening to the radio, since none of the English-language stations here appeal to me, and I’m not a fan of a significant enough chunk of French music to want to listen to those, either.
The “big three” English stations around here are CHOM 97.7 - a rock station, 99.9 The Buzz, mostly rock and alternative, I think and Q92, soft rock. There’s also a “hits” station, lots of pop, IIRC.
I’d like to listen to The Buzz, but reception on this side of the mountain is terrible and patchy at best, so it really isn’t much of an option.
CHOM is almost good. They just seem to only have a playlist of about 20 songs, and they aren’t even the best of the genre; there’s just something about the entire format that I dislike. It seems aimed at people much older than I am, which makes it a little boring to listen to.
One of the (very) few things I miss about Hamilton is Y108; an old and new rock station that did a very good job of playing the favourite “classic” songs as well as adding in new things, and promoting local rock/alternative music. They advertised to the 20-30 year old demographic, more or less, so it was humour and events and news that appealed to me (I’m 26, btw). They had a couple of awesome contests - the “Man Cave” and “Rock and Roll Fantasy” would have me scrambling for the phone trying to get my name in!
When Y108 played songs I disliked, or I just felt like a change, Toronto’s 102.1 Edge was a pretty good backup, though I often felt too old for that station!
Most of the time I would listen to radio in the car, when I didn’t have a CD in the player. I miss having that option.
Do you ever listen to radio? How are the choices where you live?
