Turning the Dial

 

One of the most important parts of a car, especially on a road trip, is the entertainment system.

Sure, I can rely on my phone for streaming or to play my own library or even CDs (!), but I tend to lean most of all on an old friend: the radio.

It was also National Radio Day this past Saturday, for what it's worth.

Now, admittedly, I do have satellite radio and I'm not afraid to use it. I tend to go with The Beatles Channel, First Wave (classic alternative), and 80s on 8 as my go-to channels.

I have a few others as well though I'll also flip the dial a bit. As you've probably come to understand, I'm particular and not a big fan of repetition.

"If it's overplaying it's not stayin'" should be my motto.

But, while satellite can be reliable it's also 100% true that it's not local at all. As a result, I spin the dial quite a bit on both the FM and AM bands.

The one thing I didn't want was network stuff. I can get that basically anywhere. What I wanted to hear was trule local stuff. I wanted to hear the news and the commercials and the sports and topical talk.

As you can imagine, that's tough to find in 2022, but not impossible.

I also know what stations to lean on. There's a good 80s station near Fredericksburg, VA. There are a couple of good options in Richmond. There's a decent rock station out of Raleigh that I go to. And there are the news/traffic standbys: KYW in Philadelphia and WTOP (Vin Scully's first professional radio job) in Washington.

For a stretch as I rolled up I-95, I listened to "Good Morning Fayetteville" with New York-bred Goldy on WFNC (640 AM). I'd actually listened to Goldy during coverage of a couple of the big weather events down there. Given I have family that I'm close to right outside of Fayetteville, I like being able to keep tabs on the area and listening to that online is a good way to do so.

So Goldy, a radio vet who spent a lot of time in Washington, D.C. was a good way to go until I lost WFNC's signal. Sadly, there weren't more stations or shows like that as we drove.

Fortunately, Sean wears headphones almost exclusively as we drive, keeping things where he can hear me if I'm saying something to him. Otherwise, those headphones keep him from hearing the playlist of The Beatles and whatever New Wave bands were interesting me on satellite. He also doesn't hear my quick trigger style that moves off a station within a note or two of a song.

For us in radio, that personal touch is the answer to intriguing listeners. I love broadcasting sports. You know that. But it's also the thing that brings so many to the radio. 

Little of that could be found among the dreck political talk and screaming sports talk (present company not included in this case) and other stuff that had me rolling my eyes.

What I listen to -- or don't listen to  -- is one of the most important parts of road culture for me. It keeps me entertained as well as engaged. I'm generally not a fan of silence but, sometimes, it gets so bad that being quiet is the only option. 

Fortunately, we didn't need to do that.

I didn't get my fill of the local culture on the radio but I got a taste of it along with a reminder that we still have work to do in terms of engaging audiences.