Redefining “Commercial” Radio
When I say “redefining commercial radio,” I really mean “putting the commercial in commercial radio.” I mention this because our local AM news/talk channel received my coveted Strangulation-Inducing Advertisement Overload Award this morning. I simply cannot believe how many commericals there are on that station—but what’s far worse than the mind-boggling frequency with which advertising breaks are taken is the fact that they only have about five ads that they run OVER and OVER and OVER.
Last week, I had this stupid salsa music playing in my head for about five days straight—and now that I’ve started writing this sentence about it, it’s back again, damn it—which I am deluged with a dozen times a day courtesy of, of all things, a local Suzuki dealer. (Yes, a Japanese car dealer…with salsa music. Makes purrrrr-fect sense. Well, this is south Florida I suppose.) This week, every time I turn on the stupid radio I hear this godawful piano composition that sounds like somebody just wildly tickling the same three keys over and over again, and this is supposed to be the classy and sophisticated backing for a Volvo dealer commercial.
This morning it all just came to a head. I am so damn sick of that radio station that I think I will give up listening to the morning show entirely, and that’s saying a lot for me, because I am a closeted talk radio geek. Especially local talk. In the past, this area has always had a 3-hour local talk show in the afternoons. Since I’ve moved here, it’s been hosted by a number of individuals, beginning with a much-adored old timer, who unfortunately experienced a cancer relapse a couple years ago and passed away. Since he left the airwaves, the afternoon show was hosted by a revolving-door series of alternately blasé and obnoxious individuals, some providing pure, visceral entertainment by way of the ridiculously funny harrassment calls they would elicit from their listeners.
