Shortly after starting my new job here in the Jtown I brought a radio to work so I could softly listen to some tunes in my cubicle. Even though I have a prime location in the cube farm next to the windows, there isn’t much in the way of radio reception in my little world of technology. Aside from a smattering of religious-oriented stations that sounded like a lot of people yelling in a peculiar cadence, the only other scan stop on the dial was 94.1. On my first stop on the station they were playing “The Main Event” by Barbra Streisand. This was followed by the theme from “Hart to Hart” and then one of the Supremes’ early hits.
Groovy.
I had never listened to 94.1 in this area before and it turns out that the station is fairly new as it’s a simulcast of the much older 1440 AM. WFNY is a locally owned station and touts it’s “Variety Format”. It’s slogan is the Glove Cities Favorite.
I’m listening in the car as I type this entry. They are currently playing “Everything Is Beautiful”, which was preceded by Sheila E.’s “The Glamorous Life”. Now this is variety. I love it.
Since the specialty of my radio days was the imaging of the station (I picked the jingles and the “Mr. Voice” as well as a bunch of other things), I always pay very close attention to how a station sounds between the songs. It sounds like WFNY has chosen a local singer to sing their jingles, which are a cross between 40s jazz, a bit of a skee-bop thing and melodies that remind one of the introduction to “The Jetsons”. I. LOVE. IT.
In these bland, generic times where every Main Street is faltering, only to be replaced by a Wal*Mart, Lowe’s and nation wide Burger Bomb joint and augmented by corporate owned radio where the tracks are picked by a computer and the air “personality” is on five stations in five states simultaneously, it is a refreshing change of pace to listen to “the little guy” do the local radio thing and just play what the hell he wants. It’s a reminder of what once was.
And it makes me smile.
Here’s one of the jingles I just captured in the car. You can’t hear me say “That’s awesome”. Sorry the video is out of sync. I need to figure that out.
http://www.jpnearl.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/wfny.wmv
