Internet Killed The Radio Star

As part of my daily commute, I listen to FM radio through my phone. It's been my routine for quite sometime now, so it feels weird when I don't do it. And there were times that I didn't, due to various reasons: earphones broke, low battery, poor radio signal, etc. My phone and I, we've been through stuffs, but we continued with our daily journeys nonetheless.

This month however, the contract for my PC's USB internet is about to expire. Since I'm usually outdoors, I decided to switch to an internet subscription that includes a free phone. So after years of using my "radio" phone, I'll finally upgrade to something more up to date. Now, I'm not that into gadgets really, but my husband is. So I got the latest brand and make, gave it to him, and used his old one instead (but it's still also a new model).

But alas, his phone doesn't have an FM radio! The phone is a Samsung S4, which I already named as "Samson" (lol!). Samsung Russia explains why, and below is the translation:

Our studies show a trend shift of interest to digital broadcasting, specifically – focus on listening to music content in social networks or on the channel YouTube. The flagship model of our products are focused on customers who use digital content, which use modern formats and channels of information consumption.

The above reminds me of "Video Killed The Radio Star," a song about new technology replacing an old one. Statements like that are sure to incite talks about the impending death of FM radio.

Now, don't get me wrong. I like YouTube, Spotify and what have you. Unfortunately for me, not all the places I pass by have really good internet. Also, FM radio is still a decent medium where I discover new music. An example of such is "Wrong Club" by The Ting Tings. For some reason, it does as good a job (or even better) as "digital broadcasting" in curating music for my tastes. And heck, I actually discovered on FM radio the phone that I got my husband!

And speaking of my hubby's phone, it's a Sony Xperia Z2, and it has FM radio! He's not that happy with it's camera though. The camera actually has really nice specs, but it doesn't have lots of presets that my my husband is used to. And so, we might actually switch phones anyway (what a funny turn of events). But I'm giving him time to explore, because he might like it in the end. As for me, well, I guess it's more road trips with radio phone after all. This time though, we're tagging along Samson. :)