Radio friends!

Every year we take a family road trip somewhere. This year, our trip took us through Little Rock, St Louis, Chicago and several little spots in Iowa. From The Arch to Wrigley to The Field of Dreams to Lincoln’s tomb to the store for American Pickers, we saw a lot of the heartland. Many of you saw the surprise Americana stops posted on Facebook! So much fun!

Like any radio nerd, I feverishly scanned the dial and tried to listen to as much radio as I could. My wife of 20 years is always annoyed, but totally used to it and understands my passion. I’m like a fisherman of radio! Looking to hear/catch the next big talent, etc.

Keep in mind that radio is an art form. It’s subjective. Some of the perceived “worst sounding” stations are often the highest rated in the city. If the station is so local that I don’t know what’s going on or what they are talking about—Awesome! I don’t know it all—I learn from good and bad radio. Good or bad–I’m always entertained.

Here are my takeaways from the trip:

Many small and medium markets have local weekend personalities—where many large markets do not. Even during this pandemic. Was excited to hear that.

Teasing the weather report that is coming up next. Not sure we need to be doing that. Instead of sitting through the song, I can look at my phone in less time. Maybe not the most compelling?

Heard a time check that still confuses me. “It’s 8 minutes outside of the hour of 4”. What? Yoda?

The Weeknd “Blinding lights” was the most heard song of this road trip. Last year it was “Bad Guy” by Billie Eilish.

Heard a lot of brand new music being played in morning drive. Not a common practice, as most morning shows like to play the biggest and most familiar songs in the format.

Do live jocks still miss weather breaks coming out of stopsets? Yes, they do!!! It never gets old to hear the weather jingle start, then 30 seconds of music (where they should be talking) and then the jingle into a song. I’ve done It, but it’s been easily 15 years ago. Lol.

The two salespeople voicing a two-person commercial practice is still alive and well! Why? “Hey Janet, where’d you get those shoes”? “Well Cindy, I’ll tell ya….”. Painful. Like listening to a local cable tv commercial voiced and acted by the client. Back in the day I once voiced the part of both people because the production order came down on a spot that started at midnight and nobody was in the building to assist. The spot ran for 2 weeks before anyone figured it out. Ha!

4 voice talents for one station might be a little much? I got a little confused listening to one station, where every sweeper, (those voiced things between songs for my non-radio friends) was done by someone else each time. Also, on another station, I don’t know if you need a customized jingle that sounds like the song for almost every song on the station. It’s cool to have them I guess, but not every song needs to have them in my opinion. Cumbersome. Play the actual song.

Lots of stations giving out national and regional Covid-19 stats as part of the morning show news.

Heard a station that was a current based, hot rotation Top 40 format with a ton of alternative leaning recurrent and gold titles. This small market might have been really competitive or someone is trying too hard to find a format lane? Refreshing and WTF all at the same time. Like an ugly make out partner that happens to be an awesome kisser?

Turning the mics on and seeing what happens is still alive and well. It’s also painful to listen to someone stumble and shuffle papers just to eventually tell me the weather report. We can do better than this. #Tryharder. You knew you were going to have to talk.

I counted 16 obscure movie drops in one morning show intro. Might be a record?

Was happy to hear a lot of local morning shows.

We are all using the same show prep services. The industry could probably use a few more. I heard the same “national pepperoni shortage” story on 5 different stations within 30 min. Some delivered it well, whereas some just read it verbatim from the service provider. We can do better than this.

Funny joke or not, awkwardly laughing at yourself on the radio—still a thing.

Lots of shows were “in the moment” and talking about back to school, etc. Radio didn’t feel tone deaf on this road trip. Was very happy about that.

I’d like to highlight two stations that I enjoyed listening to for different reasons. If you know the PDs or anyone that works there, please share my words with them. 1) WZOK in Rockford, Illinois was a solid pop station. Even in this lock down pandemic way of programming, the station was active, bright, in the moment and the playlist was solid. Props to you! 2) KWEL (Cool 95.1) out of New Boston/Texarkana, Texas is a retro-pop classic hits format that plays a lot of songs that you remember, but perhaps don’t need to hear more than 1-2 times a year. It was refreshing to hear all the pop songs I played as new titles back in the day, but had not heard in a minute. As a radio guy looking for something different, I found this station to be refreshing.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk!