When you're running a team of people i'm never disappointed as to how little things manage to escalate and become a 'thing' when really they shouldn't be! 🙂
This weeks dilemma in the office it is the choice of radio station. All of a sudden it has become a 'thing'!
In essence the older few do not like stations like 6 Music (to be fair it really is pretty bad now and the music ratio they play is one good tune to ten bad!), the younger crowd don't like Smooth as it is 'one warbling song after the next' 🙂 and some don't like the adverts.
So, do we have any alternative, funky radio stations without adverts i can put on?....is XFM still going? Any internet stations? I really have other things to be doing, but am waiting for my coffee to brew!
Over to you!
Solar radio.
Radio 2 is the default work option!
Most of them will have adverts. Why not get all staff to contribute to a massive Spotify playlist and shuffle it all day...they will never be too far away from one of their songs.
NME 1. No djs ,lots of good indie music ,the occasional hippity hoppity , at peak times too many adverts.
What’s just been on….
Years ago I was a Christmas temp in a big Royal Mail sorting office. The radio station changed every 2 hours to keep folk happy at least 2 hours a day.
Someone changed the radio station at the wrong time, management shrugged their shoulders and the union rep was on the point of calling everyone out.
It was an experience.
Chorley FM, obviously.
NME 1
Looks like a good choice, but maybe a bit too hip for the R2 crowd?
I'd encourage the youngsters to embrace the joy of Magic or Smooth.
Classic FM?
Upset everyone equally.
This thread reminds me why I love working from home so much!
Most of them will have adverts. Why not get all staff to contribute to a massive Spotify playlist and shuffle it all day…they will never be too far away from one of their songs.
This seems like the best option so far to me.
Isn't this why god invented smart phones and earbuds.
Do you have a license for music in the workplace? If not that's your reason for just switching the radio off.
@scruff9252 - me too!! 😀
@MoreCashThanDash - The coming in your ears one??
@ZippyKona - thanks, i'll put that on and see if it keeps them appeased! If not, one effin giant public Spotify list is incoming!! The most vocal of the crowd are going to be responsible for collating, building and maintaining....put your head above the parapet and all that!! 😀
I came here to recommend NME1 but I see it has been done, so my other option would be to suggest NME1.
6Music is still the only station I can bear listening to, I can guarantee that I’ll hear two or three new songs during any given hour, sometimes that many just during my commute to work morning and evening.
Work has some utterly shite commercial station on over the PA, Kisstory or something, I had it turned off in the workshop area I’m in; unspeakable rubbish, and they play the exact same limited playlist every. single. day! They just shuffle the order. I know, because I can still hear it from the next door workshop. 😖
I do listen to my own music on my phone, with earbuds in, mainly because having the radio on my phone gets frustrating if LaLa has someone interesting on, and I have to keep pausing it, I lose the thread. With close on 60,000 tracks on my phone, it doesn’t matter.
Tried Planet Rock a few times - a few OK tracks, but mostly turgid American hair metal or blues-type heavy rock. Highly unlikely to hear Tool, Gojira, Mastodon, or Ghost on there.
Radio 2 until Jeremy Vine comes on. Obligatory tea break for Popmaster at 10:30
Wait until Vine finishes - put Radio 2 back on.
I’m forever grateful that I no longer work somewhere that has a radio (or other source of music) on in the office.
I’m forever grateful that I’m the boss and have absolute power over what is played!
Where I’m working at the moment, whoever gets in the office first gets to choose the radio station
So if it’s one of us designers then it’s 6 music, by law, and woe betide anyone who thinks of changing it
If one of the marketing girls gets in first then it will be something unspeakably dreadful like Heart FM
Luckily us designers tend to be either bedwetters or awoken by the voices in our heads, so we’re usually in before them 😃
On the rare occasions one of the marketing girls makes it in earlier, the entire design department will be sat with headphones on listening to 6 Music
is XFM still going?
It rebranded to RadioX a few years back, but yes it still exists.
NME1 for Indie
NME2 for dance
1) Get everyone to put their choice of station into a random number generator (or on a bit of paper in a hat, though that's easier to tamper with). Choose one at random, that's what you're listening to today. Rinse and repeat. Either replace the drawn station to keep it random, or discard so that everyone gets their choice eventually.
2) Explain that you don't have a licence to listen to music at work and so the radio will be turned off permanently for legal reasons.
3) Change jobs and work with grown-ups.
I flick between Radio 2, Radio X, Absolute Rock/80's/90's depending on the DJ/My mood
Radio 2 is the default work option!
Office life can be cruel.
The grown up answer is headphones.
Classic fm tends to cut down the amount of swearing I do at the radio at work so it’s that or occasionally kisstory .
One of my colleague keeps sticking lbc on, now that is utter shite.
Other people's music choices out of a tinny crappy speaker is my idea of a living hell. It cost me £250 and a set of Sony noise cancelling headphones during lockdown one when the factory turned into a wild west free for all. Best 250 quid I've ever spent.
I would suggest fip - radio France. Good choice of music, very little chat, which isn’t distracting as it’s in French. A choice within of streams playing rock, or pop, or jazz, or reggae, etc
https://www.radiofrance.fr/fip
3) Change jobs and work with grown-ups.
If listening to music at work isn't grown-up then I am glad I am not grown-up.
Classic FM is brilliant. I also really like Radio 4 Extra...
Suspect both of those will be lead balloons, but they work for me, but then it is just me in my 'office'...
No love here for Radio 3 then?
If listening to music at work isn’t grown-up then I am glad I am not grown-up.
Someone has never listened to Radio2, or any of the commercial channels at work, for hours on end... the music isn't the thing that'll make you flip out.
Radio 2 is for people who liked boring music 30 years ago and need a daily nostalgia trip back to when they were 'young and cool'.
kisstory
Is that what Michael Gove listens to getting ready for a drunken night out?
Worldwide FM (though obviously only available online) though there was announcement not long ago they were suspending broadcasting. Just switched it on now and it’s still going for the moment at least.
HR:
People should come into the office as it's the best way to work collaboratively and interact with colleagues.
The colleagues:
On the rare occasions one of the marketing girls makes it in earlier, the entire design department will be sat with headphones on listening to 6 Music
See also: teams calls, where everyone is within earshot anyway.
Sunshine Radio is less dire than Smooth but the Gumby, the stores gimp, is first in and keeps changing the station to Smooth.
Still, they're both better than Heart effing Christmas, which I'm sure we'll be subjected to soon.
It rebranded to RadioX a few years back, but yes it still exists
Though it’s playlist appears to have been frozen in time a good while back. Someone stuck it on the other day. It just plays a constant rotation of the Stereophonics, Oasis, Kasabian and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. It’s absolutely bloody awful!
Turn the radio off, crack the whip, problem solved..
Or Stream Radio Paradise
https://radioparadise.com/home
Radio X for me. But even that gets a little repetitive.
Four options - jazz fm, R3, R4, no radio - into hat and draw one.
Rinse and repeat weekly/monthly.
Does company have PRS licence? If not, no radio. If yes, MD could choose.
Absolute radio
Radio X
Planet rock.
Four options – jazz fm, R3, R4, no radio – into hat and draw one
Jazz FM sounds like a great idea if you were looking for voluntary redundancies 😂
No love here for Radio 3 then?
Love Radio 3. I wake up to it on my radio alarm. I love that presenter, Petrov I think his name is. Dry wit :). I'm not generally a fan of the 20th century stuff they tend to play a lot of midweek though, too angsty, too overwrought. It's like it's always getting higher and never resolves.
At work I flit between R2 and 6 Music. They're both exceedingly annoying in their own ways but you can chop and change. Can't stand Steve Wright, but love Craig Charles for example which works great at the minute. They play some great music on 6 but my god, the waffle! I'd rather listen to Ken Bruce sometimes.
Commercial stations can do one.
They play some great music on 6 but my god, the waffle
Do you not enjoy being taken on a sonic journey through a musical soundscape?
Virgin plays a decent selection.
But I'd say the radio station that fits in best at work is Forth One but then that's only for the Lothians.
whoever pays the music licence should choose
https://pplprs.co.uk/themusiclicence
https://flic.kr/p/2nZhTgK
