Oh, by the way, to contextualize my posts in this thread a bit more -
I don't listen to music. At all. It bores me, I find nothing of interest in it, and would much rather have silence than noise all the time.
That said, my father has been a radio engineer since before I was born, and, around 1993 started his own station. It was a country station, not because he liked country - he didn't really care for it - but because that was what could be profitable at that time in that area. Around 1996 he jumped on the online broadcasting thing, simulcasting the radio feed through RealPlayer's new streaming network. So, through this all, a whole bunch of my youth was spent going with him around to various transmitter sites, radio broadcast rooms, and the various technical sides of things. Fun stuff. But music is still boring.
Anyway, he cashed out back in 2000 for around $3 million, and probably got out at a good time. He still does work as an engineer/inspector and such like that, but without having to worry about the whole trying to make a radio station profitable thing.
But, the upshot of my thoughts on the matter are twofold:
1) There's much more that goes into making a radio station profitable than just playing a wide variety of songs that people like/fit a specific need or goal. As the article in the OP states, repetition has made ratings go back up. People online might pontificate about the things they would like in a station, but the things that are actually profitable are often (not always, but often) quite different
2) Things such as online streaming, portable music players, .mp3s, etc. would have come along regardless, it was just a matter of time and the technology allowing it. And those things have caused dramatic changes in the traditional radio model, just due to their existence.
Change happens. That's just kind of part of life. Obviously some have adapted to it, others have given up, and others continue to be marginalized. But, that's just part of life.
