I got sucked down into another rabbit hole last night. But at least it was an illuminating rabbit hole.
I've mentioned in here before about how Loraine and I will be discussing something while sharing a dinner, and when one of us goes online to check out a fact about the subject we soon find ourselves lost in a never-ending tunnel of useless (albeit interesting) information. Well, that happened last night, as Loraine had found some old notes she had taken in a broadcasting history class back in college and was quizzing me on them.
Since, of course, I'm a dork I knew most of the answers. But I wasn't 100% about if a certain old-time AM radio station was a clear channel station (stations with no other station on their frequency so that, at night, they could be heard across swaths of the country that (at the time) didn't have their own stations). That dip into research then led me to wonder if I could recall most of the old clear channel stations (spoiler alert—I can, sadly), and then, for some reason, started me singing a jingle from perhaps my favorite clear channel station as a kid, WLS in Chicago. I wondered if I could find the jingle online, and you know what?
Why I remember a radio station jingle from the late 70s is really beyond me, other than the fact that I'm a nerd. (Why there's a website that has every single jingle the station ever used is a topic for another day). But as soon as I heard what I was looking for (a legal ID that all stations have to air near the top of the hour that contains the station's call letters and city of license) it lodged itself into my brain and still, over 12 hours later, hasn't left. Hopefully I won't start singing “WLS Chicago” on the air today, but if I do you now know why.
And, just in case I do, consider this your apology in advance.
Maybe I shouldn't be too surprised, though. As a geeky kid who loved radio I'm not shocked the jingle stuck in my head, especially because it was from a legendary station in a legendary market. But over the years I've actually had people come up to me and sing OUR legal ID (“Q107-WMQT Ishpeming Marquette!”), so maybe it's not just me. Maybe there really IS something about the way radio stations identify themselves that stick in people's heads. I wouldn't have thought so, but I still have one from 40+ years ago stuck in MY head today, so maybe there is something there.
Ah, the internet. Making dinners fascinating (and a big suck of time) since 1995.
8-)
No comments:
Post a Comment