ls FM radio even listenable any more?

I believe it depends on how much compression the fm station uses. The stations that use a lot of compression sound bad on a good system and the stations that use very little sound much better.

You mean to tell me there are other sources besides FM, to listen to?

Just got a Yamaha CT-800 tuner ....no ariel from the prior owner ..its been in their loft for a good few decades ...i've grabbed a couple of the wire in plastic Y ariels from amazon ...reception is rather fuzzy a cleanest Viking FM (Yorkshire) and ok Radio 4 (BBC) a poor Classic FM ...I'm in the UK ...i'm not sure if its the tuner or the ariels (inside) more but going from AFM mode to Mono FM does clean all of them up more ....plus of course i guess giving it some hours running after at least 20 years of loft time might well resolve a few issues ...but for a 1973/4 piece of kit its looks alone are almost worth it plus those illuminated meters and tuning scale ...

I cannot remember a time when the national radio in the UK was so bad (local radio was always dodgy - hardly good for traffic and little else).

Recently there was a bit of an outcry when it was revealed that Zoe Ball (a BBC morning show disc jockey) was getting paid a £1.36 million annual salary.

This outcry was 2 pronged as not only is she getting paid far too much for a job many would do for free, but her manic presentation style is one guaranteed way of inducing further headaches in most listeners, many of whom will be stuck in traffic.

Unfortunately it would seem as if the UK audience is simply too small to support niche stations specialising in various genres as they do elsewhere.

The vast amount of recorded popular music from the past 80 years nowadays never makes it to the airwaves. Slowly, gradually the event horizon seems to have increasingly crept forwards to the year 1980.

Of course it must be an incredibly difficult job to be a presenter that can carry their appeal across all ages, races, and social groups, but right now no one is succeeding.

So for me, it's Classic FM if I fancy hearing a human being playing some popular singalong classical stuff - or, after a usual few minutes of FM channel skipping in vain - nothing.