Sadly no, I don’t listen to the radio anymore. To be honest I wasn’t a big time radio listener. I remember being a kid growing up in Kuwait, my sister would record songs off some program on the radio onto cassette tapes. I dunno or can’t remember how often these shows were but I do remember recording a 1986 New Year special. We recorded all the songs on it and played the tape many, many times over the next few years. We settled in India in 1987 so that would have been the last such major recording we had from Kuwait. All the 1986 hits by artists like Madonna, Sade, Culture Club, Bon Jovi, Europe and Status Quo’s In The Army Now was on that tape.

Remember Tarzan Boy & the original “you spin me right round” song? That was on there too. So back in India we didn’t get cable tv until 1992 (cable tv as a whole entered the Indian market only in 1991) but there weren’t any decent English music channels run in our area. The odd exception was a 1 hour program on Sunday afternoons, which was a pseudo request show – the DJ had a limited set of singles to play from and he would always stick to that list. I remember sending in a request once and my sister & two cousins had also sent in a request for my 15th birthday. All the BBC had this weekly music program that I used to tune in to quite religiously.

Once cable tv came in to the picture and we got MTV & a couple of years later Channel V (this were during the years that these channels still played music videos and live specials) and the channels that showed tv series & movies, any thoughts of a proper radio channel quickly dissipated. For many years I never even entertained the idea of even trying to tune to radio station broadcast. It wasn’t until 2003 and when we got this World Space setup, did I start listening to radio stations. I tuned into classic rock, alternative, current rock, blues, contemporary charts and classical channels for a while. Relaxing with a good book and listening to songs in the background was very welcome, especially when tv channels became crap. Still the radio was only something I listened to once a week for a couple of hours on a weekend.

I think I can safely say that since I got broadband at home, (Sept 2006) I’ve listened to a couple of rock channels on internet radio for perhaps 2 weeks before I gave that up. I concentrated on getting more & more music and expanded my mp3 collection and that is like a radio station for me. I don’t think I will ever buy a new radio or listen to a radio station channel again. I don’t see much need for it.