Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Radio--In a State of Constant Change

Not that anyone who works in the radio business or anyone who is a fan of radio should be surprised by today's title.

As noted in one of last week's entries, I took a road trip to San Diego. One of my longtime pleasures of visiting Southern California is taking out my radio and listening to a more interesting variety of stations than those that are available in many other radio markets. Adding to the radio stew of Southern California is the stations that broadcast from the other side of la frontera. Most notably XETRA. I remember my first visit to the area in 1991. One of the first things I did driving into the Riverside area was to tune the AM dial to 690. Back then they had a sports-talk format, which lasted until about this time last year. Now they play adult standards as 690 The Lounge. I took a listen to them on this recent visit and was suprised to hear that the format would soon be changing. A quick search led me to this Orange County Register article (registration required).

So it's going to Spanish.

End of an era. (And I wasn't even around when they were playing rock music.)
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On a related matter, during the drive to and from San Diego, this was the first true long road test of the Sirius Starmate receiver I purchased last month.

The verdict? Perfect! I'm hooked. No more losing the signal during an interesting program. No more commercials or news to interrupt my music. I can pick whatever kind of music that fits my mood. I think Geogal agrees with all these points.

In future entries I'll blog more about how satellite radio is going to be a true competitor (IMHO) for terrestrial radio.

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