5. How Is a Bad Radio Station Like Our Public-School System?

Freakonomics Radio

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Documentary, Society & Culture

4.5 • 32.8K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2010

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

In this episode of Freakonomics Radio, we explore a way to make 1.1 million schoolkids feel like they have 1.1 million teachers.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Good God
0:20.0	Anything but this
0:22.0	All right here we go
0:38.0	And get it and get it on it don't
0:42.0	Oh
0:50.0	Oh
0:52.0	You've been there it's impossible to find a decent song on the radio and when you do and it ends the next song stinks
1:00.4	Now wouldn't it be nice if the radio only played the songs you want to hear?
1:05.4	The rest of the world has it figured out
1:07.4	Amazon does it Netflix does it your airline does it even your credit card company just go buy some baby diapers
1:14.2	See how long it takes before someone mails you a prospectus for a college savings plan
1:19.2	Now if your personal data is like a fingerprint then you've left big greasy smudges all over the universe
1:26.8	The key is an algorithm
1:29.6	A formula to harness that data and customize the world for you
1:34.2	To give you the things you need to make you smarter richer happier
1:40.4	To give you only the songs you want to sing
1:44.5	There's actually a solution to that radio problem and it's so easy even Steve Levitt can use it
1:50.8	About three years ago on our blog on the Freakinomics blog
1:54.4	I admitted to people that I'm a Luddite and that I don't know anything about technology and I asked
1:59.3	Our blog readers tell me what cutting edge technologies I should adopt in my life
2:05.8	Okay, we got a lot of I got a lot of suggestions and
2:09.3	I think the only one that stuck with me was Pandora
	...

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