Lynchburg: On The Radio

Admittedly, in New York, I don't have a lot of opportunities (or is it that I don't take them?) to listen to the radio. Pretty much when I shower in the morning (uh, or in da afternoon or evening), I tune in for all of 15 minutes. Customarily, that gets me two songs and 10 commercials. That's about all I can take.

But tooling around Lynchburg in my poppy's car, I had occasion to tune into the airwaves for hours at a time... with the added convenience of the miraculous "scan" button. Spot sweep? I'm outta here: Give me melody or give me death. Admittedly, radio in Lynchburg, overall, offers a lot more variety than the New York dial, where formats are obviously delivered to the greatest number of salable listeners. There, I heard top 40, R&B, adult contemporary, country (lots and lots and lots of country), classic rock, sure, but also bluegrass, classic country, contemporary Christian, holy roller Christan talk, classical, '80s... a true smorgasbord of what the radio dial is supposed to represent.

That's likely because the dial is made up not only of stations based in Lynchburg, but nearby (larger market) Roanoke, as well as county outlets in Madison Heights, Appomattox, Buena Vista, and college stations from Sweet Briar, Hampden-Sydney and of course, Falwell's Liberty University.

Sadly, the market is hardly fully local. I was dumbfounded to tune in to WJJS and hear Elvis Duran—straight out of New York's Z100! He did a fine job of entertaining, as always, but there was a definite "Yankee bent," focused on the Northeast. Wonder how that translates in the south... (I answered my own question: Arbitron ratings rank the station No. 5 out of 19 measured outlets in the market, though I don't have info for that particular shift).

So there you have it. Musing finis.