Tuning In: Radio Stations

Let me just I really didn't enjoy this assignment. Every time I drove I listened to the radio and pushed the seek button every few minutes. The display acts up sometimes in my car though, so sometimes I had to wait and listen and wait for the announcer person to say which station I was listening to!

KBULL 93.3: I'll get the bad stuff out of the way first. KBULL is the country station, so it's main genre of music is country (surprise!). I'm not going to lie, I used to be a huge country fan, but not so much anymore. I mean, I like Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift, but if you've heard one country song, you've heard them all. I did notice that the station played a decent variety of old and new artists, like Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley, Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson, etc. There was the average amount of "talking," whether it be from DJs or advertisements or whatever, but local happenings seem to be their main point, which is probably a good thing, because not many other stations do that.

JACK 103.1: JACK's slogan is, "We play whatever we want," and they're basically right. This is the station you hear at the doctor's; there's a little bit of everything to keep everyone happy. I loved hearing The Beatles and U2 back-to-back, it's just an overall all around good station! There's minimal talking, and very diverse. You hear about restaurants and store openings and closings. This station is good for everyone because you never hear the same song twice, and you never know what's coming next!

MY 99.5: This station is geared more towards adults. It's kind of like JACK, but with more recent music. There's tons of talking, mostly advertisements about clubs and restaurants and cars. My parents would probably like this station a lot. Something neat I found is that the song name and artist is announced after each song is played.

KBYU 89.1: Of course I had to pick this one! This classical station is broadcasted with limited interruption (at least when I listened to it anyway). I could fall asleep listening to this stuff, but for all the music majors on campus, I'm sure they listen to it all the time. I wonder if this is the station that they play in the special music room in the Testing Center...

-Jenn

Radio's Popularity

Radio is the most personal media because it's to customizable. You can call in and request a song, express your opinion on a hot topic, or answer a question correctly and win a fabulous prize. Listeners like that ability to adapt and make constant changes. Music is the most important part of radio programming because you can have anyone talk at you about pointless events and sales, but music is way more entertaining and fun. However, talk radio is also very popular because everyone loves to get his/her two cents in. These conversations can take strange twists and turns and they're fun to listen to, especially when you get the crazy obsessed people who go off on all sorts of tangents. While radio's popularity may have diminished due to television, it's definitely not going anywhere anytime soon.

-Jenn

The Daily Herald

The Daily Herald is Utah Valley's premiere newspaper. Thousands of people receive their daily dose of culture from this source. In my opinion, this paper is pretty well balanced. There are stories that deal with local as well as national issues with a decent amount of analysis. The stories are interesting and current and the headlines are fairly catchy. I never followed along with my paper back home, but I was pleasantly surprised that this paper wasn't a chore to read. It was kind of difficult to find a copy of this paper though, I wish it was more accessible at places close to campus. I guess that would cause competition for The Daily Universe, but it would be nice to have an array of news choices!

-Jenn

Metropolitan vs. Community

I think the big boys are struggling because they aren't focused enough. Since their audience is so big, they have to cover lots of different issues, and they don't have enough specific information to hold the reader's attention. On the other hand, the little guys can tailor their articles to their audiences a lot more easily and most have been around long enough to gain a pretty substantial fan base. Back home, the furthermost part of the county is an island that includes two little towns called Carolina Beach and Kure Beach. The Island Gazette is the island's little local newspaper, completely written, edited, distributed, and managed by members of the towns. I had the opportunity to write a couple articles for them Senior year, the people were so nice and laid-back (yay for living at the beach!), and I found them much easier to get along with than the people from the city newspaper, StarNews. The city paper isn't even that widely circulated and they had this air of arrogance and supremacy! After my brief newspaper stint, I decided that the smaller the paper, the nicer the people and the easier it is to make your stories fit your audience. Big papers don't get points in the personality department, but definitely cover more issues. A balanced diet of big time and small stuff news seems to be the most beneficial, so it's up to you to decide which lucky newspapers will be your source of current world happenings. Happy reading!

-Jenn