The days of turning on the radio to hear inane DJs rambling, or the same irritating adverts being repeated hour after hour, could almost be over.
New gadgets capable of learning your musical tastes and piping relevant songs to you via the internet have arrived.
Logitech's Squeezebox Duet (£279, available in March) plugs into your hi-fi and connects wirelessly to your computer using a home wi-fi network. You will then need to set up your computer to receive songs over the internet from a "personalised" station such as Last.fm (www.last.fm). Older Squeezebox models may also work, though a bit of tinkering may be required.
Last.fm works by tracking what you're already listening to with your computer, whether that's on iTunes, on CD or online. It then compares your musical choices to those of 20m people around the world and, when it finds someone similar, automatically selects new songs that you're likely to enjoy from a library of more than 3m, creating a station tailored for you.
Other personalised radio stations, such as Mi-Xfm (tinyurl.com/2yubkb), need a little more interaction, asking you to rate each tune they play and altering their playlist to match.
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A million Brits are now tuning in to personalised stations online every week, and many are also tuning out traditional radio. Logitech's new gadget takes it one step further by allowing you to listen through your hi-fi instead of through your computer. If you want your own personalised programme, though, you'll have to pay Last.fm a £1.50 per month subscription for the privilege.
Making the leap from the PC to the living room will give a huge boost to the new radio services, believes Christian Ward of Last.fm: "The move this year is all about getting personalised radio into the home, in a simple way, and then onto mobile phones and beyond."
The sound quality of Last.fm is acceptable - every bit as good as that of the best DAB stations.
Taking personalised radio fully mobile, although it's available only in the US for now, is Slacker.com's Portable Radio Player (from $200/£100). Launched this week, it comes preloaded with up to 40 stations containing thousands of tracks. As you rate individual tracks, Slacker learns your tastes and refreshes the player's built-in memory with other songs, using your wi-fi connection.
A 4in screen lets you browse playlists and view album artwork - although it will also screen a couple of adverts each hour if you don't upgrade to a $7.50 (£3.75) monthly fee. The subscription also allows you to skip tracks or save them to the player to listen to again. Slacker.com doesn't yet know how soon its service will be on offer in Britain.
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Personalised broadcasts of the future will probably have either advertising or a price tag attached, just as they do today. But once your radio knows exactly what you want to hear, the idea of a human DJ - however cheeky his banter - might start to sound a little dated.
In Germany last week, Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB), the service that offers easier tuning and catchup facilities to radio listeners, had its funding cut because of poor take-up. One reason was that consumers were switching to listening online, a classic case of a new technology being overtaken by an even newer one before it has had a chance to take hold (remember how laser discs were overtaken by DVDs?).
In Britain, a survey by Rajar, the research organisation, revealed that one in six listeners to personalised radio were listening to less live radio than ever before. Might this all signal the beginning of the end for music radio as we know it?