107.5 WIN RADIO ­― MARKETS RULE, FOR BETTER AND WORSE

I’d been forced by circumstance to take the taxi the past week, and one thing that struck me was the preference for 107.5 Win Radio among taxi drivers. Apparently, there’s something appealing about the little kid repeating “Win Radio! Win Radio!” and the phrase “Pinag-iisipan pa ba ’yan?” Son of a bitch.

I remember the fuss when NU107 closed down for good the midnight of November 7, 2010. For loyal listeners, it was a tragic triumph of business interests over ‘real’ music, the kind that didn’t have that large and profitable an audience.

RADIO NO LONGER SO GAGA

I disagree. In the first place, NU played a lot of shit, especially over its past decade of existence. Britney Spears was more interesting than most of the alternative crap they spewed out. But the NU107 case also highlights the importance of changing with the times. I don’t mean NU management should have changed their music to stupid masa pop music. Rather, there comes a time to accept that the medium of radio becomes irrelevant, especially among people whose aesthetic tastes are not in keeping with the mainstream.

INTERNET! INTERNET! INTERNET! (SAID THE WIN RADIO BOY)

I myself had stopped regularly listening to the radio around 1998, because I was perfectly happy buying my music, which I normally wouldn’t hear on radio anyway. 

The internet soon after provided music that would have otherwise remained alien to me. Thanks to ‘piracy,’ I got interested in rather obscure groups of whom I later bought CDs, which goes to show the benefit of abolishing copyright restrictions.

PROGRESS AND THE INDIVIDUAL

My point is, we shouldn’t be discouraged at the degradation of culture we witness in radio, a medium which is descending to obsolescence. What’s great about social and technological evolution is the increased capacity of the most individualistic and anti-mainstream of us to be satisfied, the herd be damned.