I don't know how many other people are into it, but listening to people talk rather than doing the talking is fun and intriguing stuff. As long as what's being said is funny or worth hearing. Podcasts achieve this through the internet but hey, it all goes back to radio.
Locally, in my piece of crap slice of Texas, there's a show that plays in the mornings called The Big Show, with John Boy and Billy. Not the greatest stuff, but sometimes they have decent sketches to play out. They're INTO Nascar and are right-wingers so I don't really care to listen to all of their show.
Probably my biggest turn-on for talk radio though is Howard Stern, even if he's on a subscribed service now. And yeah, I'm subscribed to it as of today (mostly 'cause I found out you can listen through the net, I thought you needed an XM tuner) (it was a long time coming). Been listening to him on and off since I was in gradeschool. And I'm really hard pressed to find anyone who also likes listening to him. Bullshit reasons on why people don't like him, though, are easy to find.
We can't forget there's other people on the airwaves like Rush and Hannity and Glenn Beck (self-appointed messenger of God), and that most of the airwaves are controlled by right-wing interests, but there's gems out there to be found.
I don't know how many other people on the forum bother listening to talk radio, but I figured it's worth a shot to find out. Who do you guys listen to and why? Depending on how this goes I can juice up this OP.
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My personal favorite show on there, though, is Len Tillem. He's a lawyer out of Sonoma County who gives free legal advice on his phone-in show. It is solid fucking gold if you like listening to people's problems, and advice given with a sense of humor; it's sort of a legal Car Talk.
I know you can pick up KGO through northern Oregon/southern Washington at night, and I'm not sure how far south or east it goes, so all of you within theoretical range should tune in.
I've heard of that guy before actually, that's a great kind of show to run.
I have actually successfully called into Science Friday and spoken with Ira Flatow. I got on the air with Tim Russert on his call in show about 1-2 years before he died (what a tragedy that is!).
Eh his show isn't so much rage inducing as amusing.
Michael Savage is another interesting one. When he isn't talking about politics he's pretty interesting and insightful.
Oh to be sure, he's a complete chucklefuck.
I once heard him railing against some dude for saying "X", cuts to a clip of the guy quite plainly saying "not X," then back to Savage saying "See? He even admits it! Rabble rabble"
Guy does not give a fuck, he just wants to yell. He's the cocaine of rage-based stimulants.
The Dallas NPR has (or had) a weekly program that was basically listeners calling in with whatever questions they wanted to ask and other listeners calling in the answers (if the host did not know). I've only caught it a couple of times but it was fun.
I would definitely get satellite radio if I would use it more than 15 minutes at a time.
Well he'll do that and then in the next breath switches to a story about sailing out on the pacific or something. Its fascinating, and why I think his rage based antics are just show.
Haha, what about John Boy & Billy do you not like? I mean, aside from when they talk about sports / politics? Some of their skits are funny. Not mind-blowingly funny, but amusing.
Also, satellite radio you can listen to through the net, either on your PC through your web browser or through your mobile devices (they have apps now).
(And as always, I've always appreciated your solidarity with me Tomanta)
My CD player is showing early signs of its death, though. I'll probably get an FM transmitter for my phone if it dies and may change my habits.
When I had a longer commute I would have fun seeing how long I could listen to conservative radio (typically Beck and Savage) until I had to either turn it off or drive my car into the nearest large object.
Now, I listen to the local NPR station. Depending on when my classes are that day, I get to listen to Talk of the Nation, the Diane Rheim Show, Morning Edition, or the local show, Charlotte Talks.
Also, there is Coast-To-Coast which may be the greatest show ever about the paranormal
It's mostly just interviews with B-list celebrities. The host's name is Space Ghost, but it isn't actually about the paranormal. It's just one of those radio tricks, like how Wolfman Jack's show wasn't actually about lycanthropy.
KGO hasn't been the same for me since Pete Wilson died, he was by far my favorite radio guy. Len Tillem does have a fantastic show.
I also like Armstrong and Getty out of Sacramento. One is a libertarian style conservative, the other is a regular conservative. Neither of them are of the crazy variety and tend to put on a good discussion.
It's actually a hilarious talk radio show with host Geroge Noory on the AM band called Coast to Coast AM (I misstated the name on my original post). I fucking love the call-ins to the show. Sometimes they'll have psychics or paranormal researchers as guests and the questions they field are amazingly awesomely hilarious.
Here's a link.
I honestly rarely, if ever, listen to the radio anymore. I never listen to it in the house, and on the rare occasion I do listen it's when I'm driving and I'll have an FM classic rock station on. Generally it's CDs or something off the iPod (Sync ftw). I only ever hear talk radio on the very rare occasion I'm riding around with my dad.
I also really like Howie Carr. He's conservative, but he's also pretty hilarious (and not always unintentionally), and usually good for a laugh.
Otherwise, I'll listen to NPR sometimes, but man, some of the hosts there are terrible. Not because of their subject matter, but their piercing voices.
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Also, a little disappointed I'm the only Stern listener apparently.
I know someone in Texas who just uses his phone's data plan to listen to one of the dozen's of NPR affiliates that are online.
back in the states I would listen to NPR pretty much exclusively. my area had 2 NPR stations though (soon to be 3!) one was classical music and the other was strict NPR. But the classical station switched over at like 5 or 6am to the BBC world service and that was great.
I haven't listened to any radio down here in kiwiland, since the boyfriend's car has a crappy japanese import radio that doesn't go any higher than 90.FM... and there's nothing to listen to there at all...
nothing.
it's like a cone of silence.
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Upside is that KUHF is gonna be able to split their station and we'll have an all classical and an all talk NPR station in the city. Which should be cool.
But then there's the freak show of people like Mark Levin and Michael Savage, guys with shows where they just scream and rant and rave and say awful things about people, and yet feel no dissonance in playing the victim and defenders of higher moral standing.
They're all ridiculously hilarious if you can get over the fact that they're not trying to be funny.
Savage is only bearable when he's talking about himself. Some of his random stories are ok. Other wise he's just veering all over the place and shouting about random crap, and it really isn't all that interesting.
Rush is just dumb. He's pure demagoguery, and I hate to hear him use every fallacy in the book to make a point, but only because the people that believe everything he says don't understand what a fallacy is.
I listen to conservative talk radio, because "know thy enemy", and sometimes it is super funny. Mostly I just can't stand the hypocracy and obvious abuse of power for greed. They love to point out how great their ratings are on the air and that's just not very interesting. Most influential people feel no need to constantly point out how popular they are, but these guys revel in it, and it's a bit disgusting, frankly.
The weekends are just NPR. Morning Edition(Danial Shore passing was a tragedy), Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, This American Life and of course Prairie Home Companion. NPR is excellent and we have a really good local station. They also do a great local show called Colorado Matters. Have a lot of interviews with local politicians.
When driving I pretty much live on the alternative station or my cds. I listen to music then.
Mark Levin's screechy-squeeky voice he gets when he's really ranting hard reminds me so much of Daffy Duck that I can't help but laugh.
Luckily for me, a lot of my old favorites exist in podcast now. Podcasts I think are how this medium is going to exist going forward, although I do miss something about the intimacy of a local radio show.
The only thing I really listen to at this point is the Rick Emerson show. The guy started out as a typical radio jock, but slowly let his pedantic, neurotic nerdery take over. He's no longer on terrestrial radio, but is available online via podcast.
The Emerson Show is a daily two-hour show that's subscriber based, but Legion of News is a one-hour daily that's free.