hedwards: Of course there's such a thing as bad music, if you believe otherwise then you haven't any meaningful exposure. There's plenty of music out there that's genuinely bad.
Aaron86: Would you mind giving a rigorous, objective, testable definition of "bad music"?
Sure. Bad music is music that is bad for some identifiable reason.
Bad music is that which drives out good music. Think about what those stations could be playing instead of kiddie pop. Don't think too hard, though; sometimes bad music drives out worse, as Justin Bieber drove out the Jonas Brothers.
Bad music is that which does not exercise or develop the talents of the performers. Virtually everything performed on
American Idol is bad music for exactly that reason; it is intended not to build up the performers but to make a spectacle of their failings. Everything performed by kids under contract to Disney is this kind of music, because it is produced solely for profit and with no regard to the performer's welfare.
Bad music is that which is done for no artistic vision at all, but rather solely to promote the commercial interest of those connected with its production, including advertisers. Even Beethoven wrote reams of this kind of bad music. Virtually all commercial pop is this kind of bad music.
I could list many more kinds of readily identifiable bad music, but they aren't so germane to the present case of Justin Bieber and commercial kiddie pop, and they'd require some knowledge of music theory and composition, vocal and instrumental performance, and production to understand properly.