anywhereisbetter

At what point did holding our attention begin to require laser beam sounds, swooping graphics, and exploding CGI robots? Seriously, I want to know.

We all know how the Fox New Channel revolutionized television news by adding flashy visuals to its programming, which, for millions of Bruckheimer-loving viewers, made the news more watchable. Of course, other stations followed suit, and now any given news show looks more like an X-Box game than actual reporting. And it’s not just news: any given sports program now features robo-atheletes shooting rockets at one another, or astronauts working on an intergalactic scoreboard (this was seriously a graphic on Monday Night Football a few years back). Fine. I’m used to it. But the point is that it wasn’t always like this. Right?

And then this weekend, it occurred to me that all this nonsense, the Nintendo-ization of all things media-related, has been around longer than I realized—on FM radio. I haven’t listened to non-public radio for a long time, and over the years, I’ve pretty much forgotten what more commercial stations are like. But this weekend, having spent more than 8 hours in the car, I spent at least part of that time scanning up and down the dial, searching for a station that didn’t completely suck. After a few minutes, it hit me: why, why, why does every radio station—from one coast to the other, and across all genres—need to stop for station identification twice a minute? Whether you’re listening to “the HOTTEST of today’s hits,” or “timeless classics from yesteryear,” rest assured that you’ll be reminded of this over and over and over. Not only that, but so that you don’t miss them, these announcements will be sandwiched between sound bites that could have been lifted straight from a battle sequence in Buck Rogers.

I suppose that, when the first station out there—god bless them—started with all the blings and beeps and bloops, it got people’s attention. And I guess everyone else has to keep up. But for the love of God, it’s gotten out of hand. One minute I’m listening to Otis Redding, the next I’m on the deck of the Millennium Falcon. I can’t take this cultural whiplash.

You’d think that advertisers would feel the same way. How loyal can a potential customer be if he or she is so forgetful as to require station identification reminders once every few seconds? How could they possibly remember your commercials? Then again, if you’re looking to screw your customers over, I guess this demographic is the one that would let you do it over and over again. “You’re listening the COOLEST jams by today’s HOTTEST artists… SUCKER.” Now that’s a station I might listen to.