You may have noticed that radio — the good old-fashioned AM/FM type, not the fancy digital or satellite offerings — has been having a rough old time of it since the invention of the iPod by Al Gore.

Seems that those pesky consumers have preferred roll-your-own music to that pre-digested by programmers in Milwaukee or Boston or Dublin (or wherever).

Now comes the news that Listener Driven Radio, LDR — crowdsourced radio, to give it a sexy Web 2.0 label — is the Next Big Thing.

According to “Inside Radio”, Citadel Media is now making the LDR service available in the US:

Launched in July [2009] in the U.K. , France and Australia , the software enables listeners to impact playlists, request songs and upload or vote for new music through radio station websites, smartphones and social networks. You Pick The Next Song, for example, lets listeners choose from three songs based on clocks and rules set by the station’s PD.  Housed in a widget on a station’s website, the system collects audience feedback and integrates it into the station’s music scheduling and automation systems. Stations can go as far as turning an entire daypart or weekend over to listeners, within specific parameters.

“Radio has been scratching its head about how to embrace and make money from social networking,” says Citadel Media senior VP of programming and distribution Carl Anderson. “With this, programmers can keep their hands on the wheel as much as they want, while endearing their stations to listeners in a whole new way with constant interaction and research to program the station together.”

Listeners can paste the widget into their own site, blog or social networking page. McVay New Media president Daniel Anstandig, who developed the system, says it was built to influence P1 listener TSL and loyalty and allows stations to evolve from broadcasting to crowdcasting.  “It gives the keys to your car to more P1s and gives them the opportunity to shape your programming, while giving programmers more real-time feedback.”

Clearly the breathless writer of the press release had never heard of radio request programs, made possible by that dazzling technological wonder, the te-le-ph-one — in operation ever since, oh, the dawn of radio in the 1920s.

Now we’re trading telephone and email for widgets and apps. How thoroughly modern.

Tags: audience feedback, automation systems, future, hands on the wheel, invention of the ipod, listeners, pesky consumers, radio station websites, request songs, sexy web, social networking, social networks, widget