I have been listening for the last year and a half to two online radio stations – Radio Paradise and KEXP. What attracts me to these two stations is that they play eclectic music and are not bound by the need to keep the music robber-barons happy as is seen in the traditional top 20-type stations.

Of course those stations are for music and as a person who is online most of my waking hours at work, the ability to listen quality stuff in the background is so critical to keep the sense of time and harmony in everything that I have to do.

It is not only music that interests me, my other two radio stations that are worth every bit are BBC world service and National Public Radio. It is telling that none of the stations listed here are Singaporean stations and I am indeed sad that it is that way. We had a wonderful radio station called Passion 99.5 which was a few cuts above the drivel of the other stations, but because it is a artsy/world music/indie music station, after 6 years of doing a great job, the funding got cut on December 31, 2003. It was a very sad day for me and I am sure for the folks at that station. I had written in to suggest that the station be converted to a listener supported station, but it fell on deaf ears (all puns intended).

The only other local station worth anything is the news and talk station called NewsRadio 93.8. The problem I have with them is that they have very diction-challenged readers/DJs that listening to the station causes so much anguish to me (apart from the fact that their website has errors when displayed on firefox/linux). Couple that with the incessant number of ads from some annoying mattress company has left me with not much of a choice but to continue to stay untuned to them.