Quoting a previous Alan Milewczyk contribution:-

These days, music is fragmented
much more with stations occupying specific niches.

I think there's another factor, and I guess it could be called patience or being 'happy to queue' or whatever. We used to have that. Not so much the waiting in lines with food coupons for an allocated pint of milk, but happily sitting through some god-awful song waiting for something we liked to come on. In its extreme this might be something like Two-Way Family Favourites. We'd sit patiently through the Mrs Mills plonking at her piano disc that grandma on the other side of the room liked because the next record might be the Yardbirds.

These days we don't wait for anything. We want it now. Right now. And, one could argue, why should we have to wait? Now, if I want talking radio, I switch to it. If I want Chilly music I switch to it, if I want pop, I switch to it. If I don't want ads I switch to something else.

In the old days we just left the radio tuned to one station and patiently waited. Maybe that's why everybody was far less stressed and wound-up than they are these days.

I echo the comment made by Geoff about choice, we do have much more
these days and for me, that's down to the Beeb and the internet sector.
The commercial guys have lost the plot as far as I'm concerned.

Agree on this one too!
--
* Christopher England just said that *