Trading All-News Radio for Morning Music

In the Bay Area, we had two choices of public radio stations: KPFA (ultra-leftie) and KQED (NPR affiliate). As a student at Cal, I took a course in development (as in countries) in which the professor had us track a development story across a variety of media for the semester:  newspapers, news magazines, radio stations, TV stations. I was astounded by the results: KPFA, with its scrawny budget and its complete shunning of corporate sponsorships, had the most complete news details in every newscast: They beat out NBC, ABC, the NY Times, Time magazine, the works. And they beat out KQED, which seemed like the softball cousin of the hard-hitting coverage of KPFA.

But KPFA required a bit more righteousness and morale outrage than what I could muster on a regular basis, and to chill out they played a lot of world music when what I wanted was news and talk about news, and so while my husband remained a big fan, I switched to KQED for my daily fare. Call me a sucker for Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and the Saturday treats of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me and Car Talk. I pretty much like everyone on the NPR line-up, except Terry Gross, who drives me nuts. I had a half hour commute minimum, twice that if I decided to turn around after dropping my daughter at school and work at home. So make that nearly an hour in the car twice daily. I logged some serious NPR time. And I loved it.

Now, I am on a slim NPR diet. First of all, there is my commute, down from an hour round-trip to about 15 minutes round trip. Barely time to hear Frank DeFord tell it like it is about doping in sports or the ludicrousness of expecting top athletes to be role models. 

And then there is KUT, the Austin public radio NPR affiliate.  Try typing it into Google, you don't even get a hit on the first page. Even search variants will fail to yield the website of this mysterious station. What I want to know, first, is how in the hell this radio station on the UT Austin campus (get it, K-U-T) is the only radio station in the country with three damn call letters? Did some powerful Texas governor push that through?  Well, no, or not entirely, as it turns out. I did a little research and found out that there are 69 unique three-letter call stations across AM, FM and TV, as shown on this map, which appears on the link:

Some of these stations existed before 1922, when the nation began to shift to 4-letter calls. But KUT went defunct in 1932 and then reappeared in 1958 with the same letters. So somebody at the FCC apparently had a fond spot for history and let the three-letter call rise up once more. Or the governor pushed hard. Or both.

Now, the thing about KUT is that it is not all-news. Granted, it does have a lot of news. They do Morning Edition and All Things Considered, bless their Texan hearts, and Weekend Edition and Marketplace and The World and BBC World Update. You would think that would be enough for a gal. But no. I was accustomed to hearing The California Report in the morning, now I get the Austin Music Minute. After all, this IS the live music capital of the world. I heard the witty Do List and Michael Krasny on Forum and then Talk of the Nation with Neal or (on Science Fridays) Ira, now I get John Aielli and Eklektikos, a music show that spans a full two and half radio hours each morning.This fellow John, who does play good music and is enchanting, really, speaks in a soft, low voice as if he is melodically stoned, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, I'm just saying. So when I shoot down to campus mid-morning after working at home for a couple hours, I hear whatever John wants to play and whatever lyrical story he wants to gently tell, not what is happening in the local political scene, the nation, or the world. Which is to say, I am feeling a little disconnected.

Now, I do have some options. I read the NY Times more thoroughly than I used to do. And I have on a couple of occasions listened to KQED on my iPhone. But that feels like cheating, especially when my goal is to fit in here in my new town and state. And so I go ahead and turn on John and listen to him sweet talk me into some jazz tune or, more likely, some local Austin artist who has some new release. And man, the 15-minute commute just swishes by.