Local Radio

It's been a while.

I've been very busy the last few months, and as such have not had time to vent my narcissism. Things have calmed down now, and I'm back. I'll pause for applause now...

[Pause]

That joke is much more effective if we're both in the same room.

Today's topic is radio. I don't know what your individual taste's in radio are, most people would say they like music but I don't think that's what radio really is about anymore. I've started to listen to the radio more lately because my new wife doesn't like talk radio. This is quite understandable since English is not her first language, and pop culture, sports, politics have very specialized verbiage. However, her taste in music is quite foreign i.e. Borat's favorite Corkey Buchek. While that example may be a bit extreme (here's the hyperbole I promised Charles) it's not too far off. Anyway, I obviously can't listen to 'Bing Bong Bing Bong Bing' all the time. So we compromise...with the radio.

I live in Jacksonville, Fl, which is a pleasant enough town but is #46 of the top 50 radio markets. Our radio is awful. To put this in perspective the only markets smaller than ours are

47. West Palm Beach, where the elderly are upset that Lawrence Welk doesn't get enough air time.
48. Oklahoma City, where they don't know there is radio beyond the country station.
49. Memphis, where no one listens to the radio because they're too busy being shot.
50. Hartford-New Britain-Middletown, where I don't have a snide comment about.

In Jacksonville we have Top 40, Top 40, Top 40 and you guessed it...Top 40. There are 5 stations that at any given moment 3 of which (60% for you math majors) will be playing the same exact song, sometimes within seconds of being in sync. I'm not sure if this is a plan by the government or aliens or the Nazi's but it's slowly driving people insane.

Now I want to be clear here, I'm not commenting on the state of popular music in the country. If there's enough clamoring I'll do that later, but now is not the time. If you like the hollow tripe of Britney Spears, Sean Kingston, Drake, etc. that's fine. If you don't know who any of those people are, good for you, and you are the type of person I write this blog for. Welcome. Take off your jacket and stay a while.

Things are not much better in the AM band. In Jacksonville the talk radio is comprised of all sports or all politics. The sports would be fine if they talked about sports, and not just the Jaguars. Unfortunately the local populace is so enamored with the team, and the on air talent so bereft of talent, that no national topics are ever discussed. I understand the need to reach out to the locals, to keep them interested, but for heaven's sake if I didn't know better I would think Jacksonville was a Banana Republic with Wayne Weaver as the Generalisimo.

This of course leads to the other offering of the AM band: politics (for those of you scoring at home, that was a segue). Maybe it's because we're in the south, maybe it's because it's so hot, or maybe it's the Nazi's again but the people on the radio are slightly to the right of the Kaiser. I know that's a lot of WWII era German references, but keep in mind I wanted to be a lawyer or a writer when I was a kid. Back to the topic at hand. I don't know who fuels Limbaugh, Hannity, and Savage's fear of everyone not white and male, but please take the microphone away from them. If someone doesn't agree with you, that doesn't make them wrong, and it doesn't make them evil. Sometimes an opinion is just an opinion, unless of course they're mine in which case you should take heed accordingly.

In conclusion, I have difficulties with the radio, on both sides of the band. This is unlikely to change, as teenage girls and old people are apparently a very valuable market segment and obviously outweigh the purchasing power of white males in their mid twenties. I guess I just have to whistle to myself. Bing Bong, Bing Bong, Bing...