Radio stations are generally more interested in you listening to commercials than playing music as it’s their main source of income. They play songs that attract listeners. They sell commercial time depending on how many listeners they have. So, in answer to your question… They couldn’t care less what the song is as long as it attracts people.

Maddening, isn’t it? You hear a new song you like or an oldie you’ve forgotten and can’t find out who did it. But that’s not a problem anymore if you use a cell phone or tablet. Free apps like these “listen” the song a few seconds and then display all the info about it. I use Soundhound. Couldn’t live without it.

The stereo in my minivan shows the name of the artist and the name of the song as its playing on the radio. It’s pretty cool.

This is why I use iTunes for radio. It displays the song.

Time is money, air time is valuable.

I use Shazam like @Pachyderm_In_The_Room uses his app. And then I can buy it too!

Radio stations stopped identifying songs a long time ago. And now they display it on their websites, so you can go look up what the song was you heard on the way to work. But the stations I listen to usually run through the songs after a half hour or more, but they like to give you “uninterrupted sets”.

Classical music stations usually announce the piece before and after they play it. Having an announcer costs more than just piling the discs up and letting them play, without comment.

Because it is all generic rerun pop music nonsense that you hear 20 times a day.
No need to announce something that everyone has already heard a quadrillion times.

I am with @zenvelo. Check the radio station website. You can just enter the time they played it, and they tell you the song and artist.

What about the music on programs like “Science Hour”, sometimes a snippet sometimes the whole thing?

The itunes, the stereo in the mini van etc. are options but how about the standard?

They owe it to the artists who they are making money from. Introducing it to everyone is basic decency.

@flo If you are listening to something on NPR you can go to the website and see what the songs were, even if they only play 15 seconds they’ll list the source.

because they replay the same stuff over and over again they figure that you got the name the first million times they played it