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We were going in to work this morning, endangering ourselves and others by trying to find something good to listen on the radio rather than watching the road (hey, at least we weren't on the phone), when it hit us as it has hit us so many times before: LA radio sucks.
Not all LA radio sucks, of course. We were very pleasantly surprised to hear, "You mean Bang The Drum Slowly? Bull Durham?" during the course of some Indie 103.1 deejay banter about baseball movies this morning. KXLU has a pretty eclectic mix... when we're in range of their signal. The Pomona College radio station is good when we have to go visit relatives in the Inland Empire. But is that all there is? We're fine with having to go to Jersey City or Los Altos Hills or god knows where for our radio online, but what about when we're in the car? We're in LA. LA means we're in the car. A lot.
We've got a few suggestions to improve the local airwaves:
1. KPCC should get rid of the verbally-challenged Shirley Jahad and the very unfunny and not-at-all informative Sandra Tsing Loh. And if they stop cutting off the second hour of So Whad'ya Know in order to broadcast Weekend America, we might even consider pledging some money.
2. KCRW should stop spending piles of cash on expensive cinema ads if it wants to keep asking for donations. And it really should stop calling itself eclectic if it can't book a music show without "groovy" or "vibey" in its playlist description.
3. Indie 103.1 needs to hire Rodney Bingenheimer away from people who don't give him the respect he deserves.
4. Somebody needs to give luxuriamusic.com a radio tower. That would be some good music to listen to while tooling around in an old convertible on the way to the beach. Not that we have an old convertible, or have been to the beach in months.
5. KXLU needs to stop being bullied by the Jesus station that takes over its frequency in the Silverlake-Echo Park area. FCC rules be damned.
6. Put the real KDAY back on the air.
Photo by wot nxt via Flickr
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KCRW might be trading cinema ads for radio mentions - I got no problem with that.
I don't know what's going on elsewhere on the dial mostly because I keep mine parked on KCRW. I know not of what ads you speak of, so maybe they're very unobtrusive.
KCRW, good as much of the music may be, suffers from the same playlist rotation problems as any of the commercial stations. Just happens that the 50 songs they keep playing all day are a bit better than 103.1's. Would it kill ya to throw in some of the older stuff in with the new? That's what college radio has always been about.
Nic Harcourt makes me want to stick needles in my eyes.
Satellite radio has many options but unfortunately a lot of the music is Rock "101" or "Intro to Jazz" etc. It can be too all-encompassing and assumes the listener is green. There are exceptions. But the best radio programming out there is found on internet radio stations like dr-yo.com and littleradio.com (that is if you are in line with my whacky tastes).
This is where being bilingual is helpful, especially in a radio market such as Los Angeles.
Some of the Spanish-language stations play excellent new and old music of all genres from rancheras to rock en español. I stay away from the "Hispanic urban" format of Latino 96.3 because I can't stand the lyrics and tired beats.
I enjoy KCRW. They play some of the best in Latin Alternative, which I don't hear on Super Estrella 107.1 which is supposed to be the pop/rock station.
All that said, when you look at the nation's other radio markets, we're pretty damn lucky. New York, Chicago, etc. can only look on with envy as we boast a commercial radio station like Indie, and a powerful, trendsetting public radio station like KCRW.