07 February 2006

the mexican scorpions and pay to hear

Back when I lived in St. Louis-well, 30 miles east of St. Louis-I was lucky enough to be able to pick up KDHX, St. Louis' listener supported community radio station. KDHX was great for its variety; they played everything from a late night show hosted by a guy who thought he was a cat to Mexican hair metal. KDHX was great for annoying my cousin Curt, who was unfortunate enough to have to commute with me back from our job in a downtown St. Louis warehouse. Tuesday nights were Mexican rockout nights, which meant that Curt would have to endure a 40 minute car ride chock full of Spanish lyrics and spastic dancing by his driver (me).

When I moved away from St. Louis, I assumed that I'd discover the same bonanza of variety from public radio in Indianapolis. But to my surprise, there wasn't anything to discover. Or at least anything as well known as KDHX is in the St. Louis area. I've been in Indiana five years now and I can't think of any local radio that appeals to me (short of X103's Sunday night Planet X (and after seeing a picture of the host, I'm not sure I should admit it)).

Of course there's a dedicated Hispanic radio station in Indianapolis, but that's almost too much. At work I can rely on KDHX's live feed, or the often suggested but recently discovered WOXY.com (though they don't play anything Mexican).

But after looking (and listening) yesterday, it appears that both KDHX and WOXY are in financial trouble (they're either begging for paying subscribers or for $100,000 in donations). KDHX regularly has pledge drives and seems to be pretty well supported, but my guess is that the pay for radio proposition will be remembered as WOXY's death rattle. I suppose that's the way things go when even corporate radio is struggling to find a market.

WOXY's sort of variety may have been replaced by Ipod's shuffle feature. But hopefully KDHX is going to survive this, because the chances of my Ipod randomly shuffling to Mexico's answer to Bon Jovi are pretty slim.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know, it's funny that you talk about KDHX, because I just discovered that station here (and posted something about it). I can't listen to it as much as I'd like, but I do what I can. I never knew that there was "good listening" in St Louis. The Point is so old and KSHE is getting kind of weird.

I have to tell you though, I miss the Spanish radio stations that I listened to in DC, La Mega was the best! There just isn't that kind of diversity here. Thanks for making me homesick for DC, jerk.

Anyway, I'm not half as good at writing as you are, so you should probably just delete this after you read it, mkay?

Jim said...

You might give the The Free Zone a try on Friday and Saturday nights. They're on past my normal bedtime, but I have listened to the show a few times and enjoyed it.

Mike said...

Thanks for the comments, Kate. I don't see how your writing is any worse than mine.

How is KSHE getting weird? Have they stopped their 24 hour Sammy Haggar/Rush/Led Zeppelin rotation?

Mike said...

Thanks for the link, Jim. I had forgotten about The Free Zone, probably because it's only on two nights a week.

Do you know if that's run out of U of Indy? For some reason I thought it was.

Anonymous said...

It is run from UIndy's station
- Gina