“Now you can hear anything you want, wherever you want – that’s great. But knowing what to listen to hasn’t been completely figured out yet.”
That’s legendary music producer and former Columbia Records co-chair Rick Rubin, in Wired magazine.

As a Netflix subscriber, I can identify. Often, when I browse, I’m so overwhelmed with choices that I can’t decide what to watch; and I wander back to the channel guide. Rubin himself admits “I really don’t like having to DJ. I like being surprised by what comes on next. I like it coming to me.”

New-tech options may have rendered music radio obsolete, but not extinct.
Most music stations play LOTS more commercials (in a row) than listeners will tolerate. But no matter how few spots air, there are NO commercials on listeners’ own smartphones/iPod-based collections, or in various streams.

Two points:
1. Careful-as-they-should-be about the playlist, music stations that will continue to be viable distinguish themselves via:
a) Personalities that bond listeners; and
b) Information:
• well-chosen/well-written local news stories;
• staples like weather and traffic, which matter lots to the busy in-car listeners who are such heavy radio users; and are still viable radio “positions” because fumbling with smartphones while driving isn’t cool; and
• other “survival information,” about the products/services/leisure time options pertinent to target listeners.
2. Though News/Talk is my core competence, I am, increasingly, working with music stations on everything-but-the-music.