Absolute Radio Anmeldelser 

I am usually subjected to Absolute Radio (the regular one, not 90s 00s etc) at work 9+ hours a day, so I feel I am qualified to leave a balanced opinion.

Commercial radio is what it is. I am fairly certain none of us would choose to listen to ads. In some workplaces you may take turns listening to each other’s Spotify everyday. Hearing something fresh everyday would be my preference, by that I mean different artists, genres, old and new etc

Unfortunately this is where Absolute falls down, although to be fair every radio station is guilty of this. It is quite simply the same artists all day, every day. There is a no repeated song guarantee between 9am and 5pm. However the same artists are repeated within that time frame. And this is repeated every day. You can expect to hear the same artists and songs every single day and it becomes tiresome very quickly.

There is so much music out there, particularly within the indie, rock and alternative genres which Absolute plays. I would recommend the station switches up the songs they play by their favourite artists. For example, you will likely only hear the same 4 or 5 songs by Blur, Oasis or Queen. These bands produced lots of material and singles than what is played on Absolute. Wouldn’t there be an opportunity there to have a no artist repeated guarantee between 9am and 5pm? It would be nice to listen one day and have no idea who or what you might hear next.

Returning to the ads, I am aware Absolute have recently launched a Premium service, where there are no ads. Personally I would not pay for such a service as I already have Spotify for my private use. The idea itself of radio with no ads and all the other features and extra stations is at least forward thinking for commercial radio even if it is a money grab. However in the workplace this service isn’t accessible even if someone else decided to pay for it.

So the problem here is that whilst listening to the regular station, you are subjected to hearing ads for this premium service constantly to the point where it becomes more than a little tedious. When it isn’t being advertised, the presenters are often talking about it. You are then obviously forced to listen through the regular ads also. All in all, it is very hard not to become irritated by it all, when you hear it for 9 hours a day.

I would also like to mention the stations motto, ‘Where real music matters’. I strongly dislike this saying. To me, what this is implying is that anything without guitars or drums isn’t real, whereas music is ultimately an art form and cannot be simply held down by certain boundaries. I love rock music. I also love dance and electronic music. I also love technical death metal. I love R’nB.00s Hip Hop Drum ‘N’Bass and some classical/soundtrack. I think you get the picture here! Saying real
Music is only rock and indie is extremely insulting and condescending to those who love all genres. The real irritation though is having this motto repeated every day. Recently a feature was even made out of this on one of the shows.

Another aspect of radio is of course, the jingles. The voice over bloke I personally find extremely annoying, although most may disagree.

Also the DJs. All I will say here is that mindless, asinine chatter may be entertaining for some. This is not the case for me. The breakfast and drive time shows are unfortunately loaded with this. Combine it with the ads, limited playlist and all the above? Yeah, you may see where I am coming from here.

Some positives as there are some! As I say I am forced to listen throughout the day, and by far my favourite presenter is Leona Graham. She is knowledgable, often talks about the artists/songs she has just played providing some interesting facts about them. For example, I may be naive but I had no idea Sting provided backing vocals on ‘Money for Northing’ by Dire Straits. She then provided the story behind that. More stuff like that please!

I also like ‘Through the Decades’. How about a similar feature where one hour on the station is dedicated to playing a song from each year, say start in 1990 and finish at 2010, as an example.

What I would like to see (hear)….

More artists and more of their catalogue rather than the same songs every day/week/month/year.

Actual extended discussion of the music being played where possible, instead of the dumb chatter

More features such as ‘Through the Decades’ on air during the regular working day on the generic station, could this be done at 2pm maybe? I basically making a feature out of each hour or finding a way to present the music in a more engaging way consistently through the day would be a start.

This Radio station is on in my office all day everyday - do us all a massive favor and stop playing the same old rubbish annoying songs!! and stop lying saying no repeat guarantee all the time cause its a load of rubbish

Consistently playing shambolic music. “No repeat guaranteed”? After 12pm they reload the same awful songs, due to my working hours I hear them more than once per day. Baffles me how absolute is still on the air. George Ezra gets played at least 4 times a day for the past 2 months it feels like. Horrendous!

Absolute garbage is what they should be called. Just full of chatter and bits of songs. I have been trying for weeks to get in touch with someone but, surprise surprise impossible. Far too many adverts. All their radio stations are the same. Can't listen anymore. 🤬🤬

13th August 2022 purchased premium service subscription. Said no repeats, no adverts, can skip unwanted tracks, cancel anytime. Have emailed and bounced back..unmanned. Tried to contact but other than live radio no chance. Wanted to cancel, that's appears impossible. Very annoyed

I only listened to 80S and 90s in the car now and again, It's supposed to be Digital technology but the sound Quality is "Absolute" rubbish. It's sounds worse than the old AM virgin radio, and it's Mono not Stereo.
I have Internet radio but it takes that long to set up, change stations and adverts, you are nearly where your going before it comes on.
I found a new 80s and 90s Station which sounds 100times better.

Sadly despite my initial fervour that I'd at last found a UK country radio station that played a good mix of music.... Absolute Country plays so many repetitive jingles and voiceovers for their own services that the actual music disappears into the background!
Constant claims that "this is where real music matters" (where it quite obviously doesn't!), are now interspersed with constant advertising for their 'new paid for app'. DJs are clearly instructed to talk incessantly about the app, jingles nag constantly about the app, and 'standard' advertising the app is then jammed on top! It is not possible to listen for 5 minutes without having details of the app crammed into your ears!!!
On top of this of course are commercial adverts, radio station dial-in competition adverts (£2 per text!!), and now even an absolute radio dating site is being plugged!
Very very evidently music might matter here.... but not as much as the all new subscription app (... advertising once again as I write this).
Bye bye absolute radio, and good riddance... I'm off to listen to a real music station thank you.

I tried again and turned it off as it was the same songs being played again and again..

Appalling. Unfortunately I work in an office where my manager thinks he has great taste in music and everyone else is entitled to share it. (Obviously this is not a professional work environment or the radio would not be on at all). Thankfully the volume is kept low enough for me to blot it out by wearing noise-cancelling headphones in order to be able to concentrate on my work, although the side effect of this is to prevent me engaging in normal conversation with my colleagues. Constant repetition of jingles, being reminded every few minutes what the name of the station is and who the no-mark DJs are, stupid over-the-top laughter, and as for "where the music matters" .. well forget that, the music does not matter at all, the adverts do, and who on earth comes up with those screeching irritating noises, which just make me want to reach for the off-switch, not buy something. If the music mattered at all they would employ people to scout out the best of the latest music offerings available. Instead we just get the same rubbish playlist every day and they seem to think that not repeating any one song during office hours is some kind of landmark achievement. It isn't. At all. It's awful and it should be taken off the air.

Fake humoured convid promoting sados

I just tuned in to Absolute Radio 90s for the first time, what garbage! Non stop over excited chatter, adverts, jingles and more adverts. They played one song in the 30mins I listened. I've now tuned into another channel and will never go back.

Worse radio station I've been forced to put up with in work they reckon they don't repeat the same songs absolute rubbish same songs are played every day throughout the week should be taken off the air

Had to stop listening because they are too many adverts

Like many people I am now working at home and listening to the radio.

I discovered Bauer Media's new station "Absolute Country" - a new genre for me, perhaps 60 years of musical history to catch up with. So far so good...

....and it gets better, like the other Absolute stations they offer a "no repeat weekday" guarantee.

However as other posters here point out, this guarantee is disingenuous.

The playlist is incredibly small - you can absolutely guarantee what songs will be played during the the 9-5 period - AND you can also guarantee that these songs will be played at least once each either side of this period.

I would say that if you tuned into this radio station from 7am to 10pm you would hear the same 15-20 songs at least three times each! I am actually going to write an algorithm to track and record this and build an amusingly pointless "Absolute Radio Track Predictor"!!

So why do they do this when there are so many other old and new songs they could play? Given that in respect of country music it is not a question of the UK download popularity, I can only conclude that the reason is due to deals between Bauer Media and specific record companies.

Probably need the money though because they advertising will be threadbare once the government stops wasting taxpayers money on "watch out for covid" adverts....not like we are not aware by now!

The classic Rock party could be fantastic, but instead we get the same tracks every week!
It seems Ms Sturgess thinks bands who have been going 40 years and over like Judas Priest, the Chili Peppers, AC/DC or Motorhead to name a very few have only got one song!
I'm sorry but that is not DJing, there's obviously a pre loaded setlist that is played every week.
There are literally thousands of songs /albums to chose from but her selection is extremely narrow and frankly
her definition of classic rock is dubious...(I'm looking at you Bon Jovi..)
The show is a lot better when she is on holiday.

Listen to the station as it plays the music I love. Pity about the dj's though. The fake laughing competition called the breakfast show is now unlistenable. They portray the toff pm c*nt as a cult hero. bush and richie just as bad. Boring middle class problem show. I listen through habit.

I like the 70s, 80s, 90s music.....

The stupid jingle grates on me and every 10 minutes it is played and all you hear is the dave berry breakfast show even in the afternoon or bush and ritchie and as for the no repeat gaurantee sick of same songs every day ! i have to listen to this as everyone else is not as close to the radio as me i would rather listen to nothing....annoying crap!

This used to be a brilliant radio station,now its just rubbish! Had the breakfast show on this morning and everything the DJ said you had background butting in and false laughter all the way through! It absolutely gets on your nerves,maybe that's why the station is called Absolute!

I love the music, but I get more chattering from the hosts than music and adverts put together. Even making an account and logging in, there is far too much chatting that has absolutley nothing to do with the show. It feels like they do not have enough music so they fill it with sensless chatter.