That's a common point of view from music-focused editors. These are folks who represent a very small minority of the radio audience, people who are very deeply involved in certain types of music. For them, there is no form of mass media that will work, and that includes any form of radio where someone else is picking the music. They want to pick their own songs. That's fine, but they are not who radio is aiming for. There's nothing radio can do for them. It doesn't matter if it's "corporate" radio, or mom & pop radio. If the music decisions are being made for them, they're not interested.
This isn't a "growing disconnect," but a problem that's always existed with music. One could say there was a growing disconnect in the 1950s between the black audience and commercial radio, because R&B radio was only available in a few places, and often only available late at night. Same with rock & roll before the 60s. The difference was there were no other options then, as there are now.
But there's really nothing anyone in radio is going to do to appeal to people who only want to hear one very narrow type of rock music, or one very narrow kind of Americana country. For them, only a personalized music device or service will work. I think it's a waste of time for a guy to write an article like this on a site aiming at radio people, because they're not going to do what he wants. What he wants radio to do is appeal to a very narrow group of people who will never be satisfied with music decisions that are made by someone else.
