An observation on Internet streaming music

With the rise of Internet music, in many ways replacing terrestrial FM radio, I've noticed something that's missing from the experience -- the announcer.

Since the Internet means computers and a user's computer has a keyboard and screen, the Internet music providers assume the listener is in front of a screen and attentive. Not so!

I generally listen to Pandora, Last.FM, Live365 (Contemporary-classical.com) or my own music from my MP3 library. At night I use my "Chumby", an interactive media player which is wirelessly connected to my internal network and thus to the Internet. It's actually a small linux-based touchscreen computer with some neat features. Normally I listen to Pandora while reading then set Chumby's timer to turn off as I go to sleep. I still listen to the music after the lights are turned off. But what I'm hearing is often a puzzle -- I know the piece but can't place the name or I don't think I've ever heard it before and really like it. But what is it? Classical music on FM had an announcer saying something like "Now, Bela Bartok's String Quartet No 3 with the Takács Quartet" and then the announcer would say it again after the piece was broadcast. Stations would also publish their prior day's play lists, so that if I missed the announcer's comments I could go to the web page and figure it out. This doesn't seem possible with Internet classical music streaming today.

When you think about it, the insertion of phrases like "Now Bela Bartok's String Quartet No 3 with the Takács Quartet" and "That was Bela Bartok's String Quartet No 3 with the Takács Quartet" is essentially the same as the insertion of an advertisement inserted on web pages by Google's AdSense -- aural additions versus visual ones. It's actually the insertion of two adjacent phrases "That was" PriorPiece followed by "Now" NextPiece. I've suggested to one of the Internet stations that they provide these announcer tips. It could be optional and possibly an additional revenue stream. Make sense to me. While I'm only interested in classical music from these music streaming services, my son agrees that it would be useful for his music(?) too. I guess no surprise there.

Since the recording industry despises their customer base and forces music streamers to live within the tyranny of tracks the inserted phrases would thus have to something longer like "Sibelius symphony number 6 in D minor, Opus 104, second movement, allegro moderato with the Vienna Philharmonic lead by Lorin Maazel". A bit of a mouthful but better than silence and ignorance.