Radio Thoughts

I have become acustomed to the reality that I am outside the target age demographic whose ratings decide what gets on the radio.

Apparently, advertisers have concluded that retired people don't spend money.  I guess they think we are either broke, or that we already have perfect teeth, sufficient tire tread, and dry basements. We are never polled to find out what makes us change the radio dial.  No one cares what we think.

Fine.  I have mostly stopped listening to commercial radio - especially the right wing talk shows that seem to me to be a melange of 50% commercial message and 51% mindless conservative rants about how Obama is doing EVERYTHING wrong, and all liberals are dangerous, unpatriotic, unwitting tools of socialism.

If you are looking for interesting talk, you need to listen to NPR.  I do not deny that there is a liberal bias on NPR, but they do attempt to give a balanced treatment to news and a thoughtful discussion - which is absolutely absent in the rants of local commercial station talk guys like Jay Severin and Howie Carr. The callers who get to be on the show are little more than a claque of adoring fans who echo the rants of the "host".   Years ago I enjoyed tuning in to these guys, because they were entertaining, funny, even thoughtful.  Now they seem boring, predictable and deadly serious.

I remember the old days when intelligent and thoughtful guys like Gene Burns and David Brudnoy were the  talk show hosts you always listened to.  They did not browbeat you with their politics or provoke discussion by appealing to prejudice, ignorance and fear.

So, most of my presets on the car radio are to local college stations which carry news or music, a minimum of advertising and not much talk.  During the past week or so all the so called non-commercial stations have been running fundraisers, instead of playing music.  So I have been shutting off the radio and talking to myself instead.  Pretty interesting dialogue, if you ask me.

Years ago, 96.9FM ran with the call letters WJIB and they played 55 minutes of smooth jazz every hour. It was one of my favorites.  Now,  WJIB 750 AM  is commercial free and plays a stream  of what they call adult standard music from the 50's and 60's.  My wife calls it "the geriatric soundtrack."   The owner Bob is also the DJ.  He bought the radio station and refuses commercials so he can play the music he likes.

If I win Powerball Jackpot, that will be my goal too.  Free music, no talk, no annoying marketing.