Just listened to the 2014 Review on “Wait, Wait- Don’t Tell Me !”
A lovely show. Homage to Carl Kasell. Got me thinking.
I love listening to the radio. We don’t have cable t.v., despite the fact that there are indeed some fine programs out there. Both of us listen to the radio a lot. I have XM Radio in the car and so I get to listen to CNN or BBC or XMPR and so on.
But… radio made for radio? I realized as I listened to the tribute to Mr. Kasell that I’m more mentally and emotionally invested in what I hear on the radio than I am by far in what I see on t.v., when I do watch t.v.
You love radio too? Why? What shows or performers or moments are your favorites?
I love a lot of NPR programming. Fresh Air, which I grew up with in Philly on WHYY Radio. Wait, Wait… etc. Also am always happy to listen to the BBC. It reminds me that there is an entire planet out there that is rarely spoken of or reported upon in depth.
I put this in here instead of IMHO even though I’m asking for feedback because it felt more Cafe Society.
Just heard the same program - I loves me some Wait, Wait and the Car Talk reruns and This American Life and TTBOOK - Yeah, lots of NPR. But I mostly listen in the car. We get crappy reception down here in the boonies and I don’t always remember to go to the local NPR station for streaming.
We have XM in our car, but since the spousal unit has unretired, he takes the car, and I’m stuck with the truck, so I don’t get to hear the cool NPR stuff on XM as I run my errands.
When I was a kid, I had a radio with me lots of times, tuned to the teeny-bopper hits of my era. Even thru college, I listened to lots of music on the radio - I don’t recall the moment when I changed from Morning Zoo to Morning Edition. Even these days, I can only take so much of the music of my days on XM because they play the same damned songs over and over and over again - if I hear Tin Man or Deacon Blue one more time, I can’t be held responsible!!! :mad:
Wake up to Morning Edition. Drive home with All Things Considered.
Remember radio is supposed to be a “hot” medium, meaning by it’s nature it forces you to put yourself into what you hear. With TV you see and hear the whole shootin’ match…so you can afford to be a little detached.
Absolutely love radio. I love the freedom of it. You don’t have to watch it. I have iTunes and it has a huge number of radio stations (over 500 world music stations!). And NPR helps out a lot.
But, I don’t think the OP is talking about music radio. Rather radio shows. As for that, one radio show I really like was a Cuban comedy radio show called Tres Patinas. It was real popular before Fidel Castro was installed. So, it is old! But hilarious! After Castro, it went to Mexico and became a TV show. But the radio show was great!
The university radio station here plays a segment of Tres Patinas everyday.
It is, of course, in Spanish.
Oooooh, lookitchoo hating on Steely Dan. Without them and The Eagles, why there’d be nothing at all on the radio. Nothing.
Agreed, Doug. I can sit in the living room and unfocus my eyes and put this onto the speakers in the room from the laptop. After the little intro thingy by the person who assembled this superbly cleaned up collection, there’s nothing to look at.
Just…listen. Such good stuff. Even when some of the dialogue was scenery-chewing, it was pretty damned good entertainment.
I love wait wait don’t tell me, and whadda ya know? I also listen to the music station on XM called 8 tracks which please deep cuts from the sixties and seventies but it is very frustrating because you can almost set your watch to what song is playing at any given time
My car radio is pretty much locked on Entertainment Weekly Radio. At home, I’ll occasionally listen to that or one of Sirius XM’s main comedy channels (Laugh USA or Comedy Central Radio, both of which are mainly clips of standup routines).
I used to listen to Busted Open Radio (a wrestling radio program), but it’s only on while I am at work and the only radio I had that could record shows recently went dead on me.
I listen to Public Radio/NPR almost exclusively. As much as I am able at work and in the truck, at home until PBS news hour starts.
Whenever my local public station switches to jazz programming I switch to the local hard rock station.
I listen to a lot of BBC radio programs. (Sorry - programmes?) BBC radio is fantastic, with just as much diversity and quality as any TV system. Comedy, documentaries, drama - it’s got everything. As I’ve said in another thread, the hands-down best, funniest comedy of the last decade - British or American - was Cabin Pressure, a radio show.
Steve Dahl is my all time favorite radio personality. Back in the '90s I had the good fortune to live in Chicagoland where, on the same station, I could listen to Jonathon Brandmeier, followed by Kevin Matthews, followed by Steve and Garry.
As for NPR/Public Radio, I used to enjoy Whad’ya Know? and Car Talk.
WXRT used to have The Grateful Dead Hour on Sunday nights, I don’t even know if they still do that.
Was talking before with my Dearly Beloved™ about Car Talk. Now, on XMPR they run 2 hour blocks of shows in the afternoon and then re-run those same shows later that night. Since the show went off the air in October of 2012, the show has not stopped airing.
Without their having set out to do so ( I suspect… ), Tom and Ray stumbled upon the most perfect program for endless syndication. On the t.v. world, I could only watch the same package of syndicated " MASH " shows but so much. And I did love me some MASH. But, yanno. One tires of what one has memorized.
The beauty of Car Talk is that every show is pretty much the same, the variable being the responses from Click and Clack. I’ve no idea if I have heard any of the shows that I hear on XMPR already- at some point I may start to recognize them. But I bet not.
NPR (and to some extent, PRI) really do radio well. In addition to the already-mentioned Wait, Wait and Car Talk, I love to catch Science Friday, Radiolab, and the TED Radio Hour. Also This American Life and Fresh Air.
2: KNX news radio, a CBS news affiliate. Their traffic coverage is no use to me – 150 miles away! – but it’s very, very good news coverage overall.
3: KFI, an aggressively and audaciously challenging talk radio station. It’s mostly crap, but it’s usually halfway intelligent crap.
4: Just to keep up with the enemy, I’ll flip through a cycle of right-wing hate radio stations, Bible stations, and other puke. I consider it “due diligence” to be aware what evil people are broadcasting. (I actually grew rather fond of Harold Camping!)
5: Does Old-Time Radio count? I’m a fan of OTRCAT, and have a good number of their collections. “The Further Adventures of Harry Lime” and “Night Beat” are two of my very favorites.
For whatever reason, certain things just work on radio that wouldn’t translate to another medium. I love A Way With Words, but I can’t imagine it working as a show.
I am a long time 3rd shifter, and Coast To Coast, while inconsistent, is a key part of the culture.
I very seldom watch tv, and besides watching fights on occasion, I haven’t watched tv by myself in years and years. I’d rather read or listen to the radio. Always wondered if there was a big overlap between avid readers and avid radio listeners.
Growing up in the UK (60s and 70s) I developed the love for radio. Stories and soaps and series, it was fun.
Many mutations later, I only listen to public radio and NPR. I hate commercials in any form. My line of work is not mentally stimulating and without intelligent talk, I would probably go insane.
This was actually the first thing that came to mind for me when I saw the thread title. I grew up listening to this under the bed covers, and damn I have good memories of that.
Really good question. I am never without a book, & I have been that way since I was about the age of 7. Dad was a newspaper man and writer; Mom was a teacher. Books were bigger in our house than anything else including radio, and certainly including television.
I love my iPad. I find it to be a useful and somewhat miraculous device. But I live in New York City, and the phrase " apple-picking " has come to mean something quite dreadful. It is a crime that occurs with increasing frequency. You will be sitting on the subway and someone will grab your iPad or smartphone just as the doors are about to close and then leap off the train.
Because of this unpleasantness, I have given up on reading books on my iPad entirely. Returning to old favorites or finding used books at The Strand or elsewhere has become a rediscovered source of great joy.
As much as I embrace and am somewhat addicted to my technology, I do love a real book.
