Campaign for youth radio in Bavaria

I have been sent this linkfor an online petition to get a dedicated frequency for "youth" radio in Bavaria: Junge Welle auf UKW

At the moment Bavaria is the only broadcasting region without something specifically tailored to a "youth" market, with good alternative music of all kinds, the newest bands, DJs, etc..

Bayerische Rundfunk's output currently amounts to Bayern 1 (news, chat and schlager-music for oldies), Bayern 2 (serious intellectual chat), Bayern 3 (naff pop music), Bayern 4 (classical music), and Bayern 5 aktuell (news, traffic, weather).

Basically the only output from Bayerische Rundfunk is their Zundfunk programming which amounts to 17 hours a week (and is a bit worthy IMHO). This is woeful when one considers that the under-35s make up a large part of the radio-listening demographic.

So unless you want to only hear schlager, Robbie Williams and the best of the 70s on your radio, I would suggest signing the petition!

Plenty of radio stations online.

Take your business there. That's what I do.

True.. But try getting thos online stations while driving down the Autobahn, without racking up big $ for radio over handy services..
(Which still limit what station u can listen to)

Seeing as Zündfunk is being reduced to limited service this petition may be necessary. Not guaranteed success, though.

M94.5 is your friend.
There are some bits on Bayern 2 like Zündfunk but Bavarian public radio is dire.

As far as I understand it, there is some kind of struggle going on wthin BR about the direction they should be going in.

I haven't got any stats to hand but I believe the take up of BR radio is muchlower in the cities than in Oberknackerhausen.

SZ, the other week:

The thing is, there's also a petitin from the "oldies" who want to see their programmes given more space on the limited frequencies. The German military is blocking some frequencies that could be used for more over the air channels becasue they claim they wuld interfere with their frequencies even though the same frequencies are used OK in other countries.

True, but to my ear they all sound exactly the same -- inane DJs playing the lastest crazy-tastic pop hits (i.e. throwaway rubbish) and the same '80s classics over and over.

So thank God for the wonderful FM4. Although Austrian, it has a large following in Bavaria due to the lack of any decent radio stations here. They even now hold events in Munich. FM4 is part of the state-owned ORF, so if Austria can provide a good, youth-orientated radio station, then there's no reason Bavaria can't.

Wikipedia: FM4
Official website

I think that is to do with "the powers that be" in Bavaria.
24/7 middle of the road pop on Bayern 3 is in itself a relatively new invention.
Thomas Gottschalk was one of their "hip" DJs and they think they've got the bases covered.

M94,5 and FM4 are the only things worth listening to, Zündfunk does have good stuff but isn't broadcasting when I tend to listen.
That M94,5 has taken up sponsorship and recording of Munich concerts is to be applauded too, it isn't just FM4 holding events here.

Yeah some M94.5 sponsored concerts are fabarooney!

And to be honest. I'd rather listen to a radio station that controlled by an eV than the bloody CSU.

I check the FM waves for something decent about once a year. Never found anything, so just listen to BBC 6 Music online.

Also, is there some Bundesnamendesliedsgesetz that forbids radio stations here to tell you the name of the song they've just played?

That is annoying isn't it! You hear a song you like for the first time and they don't tell you who it was again. All the stations seem to do it, bloody annoying.

Some stations, like the fabulous M94.5 have times when there is NO DJ to waffle on, just music.
Traclisting online innit.

Not always... Going back to what was brought up in some previous posts - what about if you're in your car? Or, in my case, I also wake up to M94.5. Some crackin' tunes on there from time to time, but I'm certainly not arsed to get up from my sacred snooze session to see who crafted the tune.

And FM4 is great, but reception on the roads here in Munich is dicey at best.

Huh? You just need to know the time and date that the song was played; the information is all there on the website. You don't have to look it up whilst the song is playing. That's the case with both M94.5 and FM4.

@STB - I'm merely talking about M94.5 here, and anyways, are you joking?! You don't think it would be a lot more convenient for people if after every 3rd song they would announce the 3 artists and songs that were just on? I'm certainly not gonna go around noting the time and date of songs that I like while I'm snoozing away or driving in my car, that's not radio as I know it.

It depends on the show. M94,5 does announce the names of the songs when they have a DJed show.
But perhaps only once, not going three millions times in a smashey and nicey routine and plugging some inane shite party or nightclub or the mass froth of the stars.

Some M94,5 shows are non DJd and they are deliberately so and the punters luv it!

BTW, any of you lot going to the Bavarian Open Festival by Zundfunk next Saturday?

What annoys me is that all stations play the same songs. Is it that there are only certain songs available or are they all afraid to be different? FM4 is a great station but it don't tell me when my S-Bahn ain't running

The last couple of weeks we've had Antenne Bayern on. No lie - I've heard 'Football's Coming Home' four times since we tuned in. Has it been re-released again or what? And if you turn over to Bayern 3 you here the same stuff! weird...

Bayern 3, Antenne Bayern, Gong and Energy all play the same shite, yes.
Why that is, is a combination of fear of change, fear to be different and fear of their market share.

I wouldn't want any inane shite party announcements or annoying as hell Media Markt ads either of course, just a simple statement of who played what just then.

Back in California I used to listen to a college radio station that were miles ahead of anything else around in spreading fresh music around, much like M94.5. They weren't sponsored by anyone except the college itself, so were spared from airing crap adverts and such. Yet, they always had someone DJing. But that didn't mean they would talk their asses off between songs. Quite the contrary, they would let the music speak, but at least share with the unknowers what they were listening to (and sometimes a few tips on related/similar artists). The (perhaps unintentional) effect of these kinds of radio stations is to get people to support and buy the singles/albums of the more un-mainstream artists that the radio station play. How are they gonna do that if the listeners don't even know what they just heard?

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad M94.5 exists at all, and appreciate it very much. I just know that I can count multiple times where I heard something, would've liked to know what I just heard so I could go and have a listen to and potentially buy the album, and didn't have my handy little notepad and pen to jot down what time I heard the track to later go look it up on the web.

M94,5 uses these “no DJ� shows to train new DJs, so they get experience of getting the right tracks on, the right mixing and fading and stuff without having to worry about announcing the title of the music or any chatter at all. Later they progress onto speaking shows. Cos a lot of M94,5 is about training people to work in the media.

Now comes the nasty bit. I went to their big birthday party in the Muffathalle.
As I walked in I was surprised to see promotional stuff lying around from Antenne Bayern! I asked the mate I was with what that was all about and he said yeah, basically the other operators look around people working on M94,5 for their stations! The other thing that struck me was that a lot of the people at this party were quite posh and snooty. When I pointed this out to my mate he said what did I expect? A lot of their target audience are Munich university students.

When I was in the US this summer (an hadn't been there since last summer) I noticed that all the radios with a digital display that previously only showed you the name and number of the radio station, now scroll through the station name, the song title, the artist, and sometimes album info.

It was great. You are driving along and want to know the song name and all you have to do is look down at the scrolling info.

It's great, as long as it's supported by all the Radio stations... It's the same system they have here which sends out the TMC and weather info
for display on your radio.

Yes, that drives me crazy, too. Thought it was just me being old-fashioned - glad to know I'm not the only one. How are you supposed to know what the music is if nobody tells you? After more years than I care to count of listening to German radio, I haven't a clue what's what in the music world.

I'm not actually going but heard on Zündfunk that it will be streamed live on the Bayern2/Zündfunk website all evening until 2am Sunday morning! Also something about a "best of" edit being available for download later in the week.

I guess a lot of TTers will be at the Muse concert/Xmas party! So they will have to wait for the above mentioned download in that case.

I heard about the Bavarian Open before the TT Xmas Party so I'm going to that.

More chance of a cop off too as I hear it is very "local".