Subtle Bluntness

This week, something bad happened.  The local FM sports radio station, 93.9 The Ticket, lost their press passes thanks to critical comments and the drive-time guy predicting that U of L would lose to Pitt (or something, hell if I know what the real reason is).  As they’re in a college town, if they can’t cover the local college team, they’re kind of screwed to the station is changing formats abruptly.

Word on the street is they’re going to become an oldies station.  We’ve got more than enough oldies stations here, and I kind of hate all the oldies that they play anyway (they never play the good oldies, just the crappy ones).  Still, they’ve been broadcasting the national feed of ESPN Radio, so on my drive into work this morning I was listening to Mike and Mike.

When I left work, what I heard wasn’t ESPN, but it was oldies.  I nearly turned the station off, but then I realized just WHAT I was hearing.  It wasn’t some lamesauce, overplayed, bullshit 60’s pop oldies, it was some legitimate oldies; specifically, it was Frank Sinatra and Tommy Dorsey from 1940.  Followed by The Andrews Sisters.  Followed by something else from that era.

Beautiful.

Will it stay like this?  Probably not.  Next week it’ll probably be another station playing the same crap that’s on every other stupid oldies station trying to capture the Baby Boomer’s dessicated dollar.  But for now, it’s a breath of fresh air.

Thanks, Dugan Ryan.  The UofL AD Tom Jurich supposedly took away my favorite local sports station, but you gave me this (Bob Valvano says he didn’t, but I’m not sure I totally buy that the economy was bad if the station was doing so well in the ratings), if only for a day.  That kind of makes up for it.  If it sticks to this format, I’ll keep listening.  Also, play The Inkspots.