My name is Owain Lucas, and this is the first edition of The O-Town, a weekly editorial that I produce every single Monday, where I talk about the latest in my adventures throughout the dial, in my experiences with music today, and trends from here locally to throughout the world. I’ll let this one serve more as an introduction to me and my work.
Radio has been something that has been around for a very long time, and in searching for information about it on Wikipedia to do a little more of a history lesson about it, I found myself running into an article that was about 13K words long. To sum it up very simply, it’s been a technology that’s been around for a while and changed throughout three years, but the core principle of it has been consistently the same.
Recently, at the start of this college semester, I bought this little AM FM radio that runs on a built-in battery that you can put in your pocket. It uses your pair of headphones as an antenna and can pick up any stations that are relatively strong to good signal. I find some stations are a little bit harder to get than others, and that building layouts can block out signals, with basements blocking out any kind of signal, so coverage wise isn’t perfect.
We had an Internet outage here on campus about two weeks ago, and I found the pocket radio I had come into very much came in handy. In a world heavily reliant on the internet and streaming services, the internet going out caused some panic amongst students. Yet I was still able to listen to music from the FM airwaves from my go-to station, which is Classic Hits Station Rewind 92.7 and 102.3 (WKVT-FM, WZBK-AM). Proving again that even when infrastructure fails in our community that radio is there and ready to give information, including in times of chaos and uncertainty.
I’ve been a radio kid my whole life, and even growing up in Ottawa, Canada, as a young child listening to the hot AC station CISS-FM (Kiss 105.3). One of my bigger discoveries in my love for radio was The Beat 92.5 (CKBE-FM) in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Back when I was in middle & high school, I listened to this station online religiously for over 4 years and always listened to my all-time favorite game show, Smarter Than Sam, a game where listeners would call in and answer 5 questions in 30 seconds in an attempt to beat the host, Sam. I still remember one of my favorite questions they asked, which was “What is the Capital of Connecticut?”, and neither was able to answer it, funny since that was my home state where I grew up. The Beat has been #1 in the Numeris ratings multiple years in a row as the top English-language station in the city.
What makes the station to me is that all of its hosts over the years have had on-air personalities that are 90% live and not voice-tracked, that involve community events and interaction, live contests, calls, and in-the-moment news about what’s happening downtown. This is not a commonality that you would normally see as often in a lot of major markets like LA and New York, as some on-air hosts may be simulcast to markets across the country and not be deep and personal to one’s area. Storytelling is an important asset of radio and keeps the listener feeling like they’re having a 1 on 1 with the listener. In addition, its unique and diverse music format, even one subject to CanCon regulations, which require a specific percentage of music to be from Canadian artists, thrives and succeeds. CKBE is a rhythmic AC station and has been compared to WKTU in New York at times. Rhythmic AC is a format that you may not often hear anymore, or may not notice, but mixes some older and newer music, and music you may not hear very often, and has been a key to keeping me coming back for so many years.
These experiences shape how I see the world through the eyes of the FM Band. I see a strong connection between being on the spectrum of ASD myself and the diversity of the radio dial. Ranging from talk radio, classical, country, hard rock, jewel-soft hits, rhythm, Latin, and many others. Many students on the spectrum tend to have special interests in song or music alongside their other hobbies, and one that I frequently see is musical theatre & movie soundtracks, such as Wicked, Encanto, The Lion King, Epic the Musical, and others. I’ve made it a goal to expose myself to as many radio formats and genres of music as I can, even just to dip my toes into the experience, to become more self-aware of music and the stories behind it.
I’ll be using my editorial to highlight hit songs today and those buried deep in the past that have come back to me, as well as to share my experience in college radio in connection with the world outside our walls. Stay Tuned!
