Houston has it all except for good talk radio
Houston Chronicle, June 4th, 2001
By William Dylan Powell

AN abundance of jobs. A robust artistic community. A wealth of intellectual capital. Houston almost has it all. But something's been bugging me for some time now, and I don't think I'm alone here. It's our lack of quality talk radio.

Talk radio has truly become the people's forum (it's hard to read Outlook while driving). Sure, it won't exactly transform your Ford Taurus into a Carnival cruise liner, but metropolitan cities need good talk radio to help assuage road rage and provide a much-needed distraction for commuters. Houston commuters are hungry for brain food, even if it's only a candy bar.

Talk radio has increased in popularity mostly because it's the lesser of evils. Most people agree that there's nothing like good music, no matter what your taste. But unfortunately, most prime-time music programming is just that. It's nothing like good music no matter what your taste. Media saturation, advertising acumen and a carefully engineered selection of music designed to influence your behavior can make for a frustrating radio wasteland in terms of music selection.

Gab-happy DJ's who laugh as if they've just finished a hearty bowl of industrial-grade marijuana try to addict you to their personal sagas, frivolous games and the lure of interesting information that rarely materializes. This leaves many commuters rabidly groping for their compact disc or cassette players. But just as satellite dish owners often have 900 channels of television with nothing to watch, no matter how many CD's you own, you're going to tire of them all eventually.

Houston talk radio just isn't keeping pace. Lunch-time drivers can still enjoy Rush Limbaugh when you can actually hear him through his thick foliage of ad time. But even the most fervent conservatives tire of his continual transfer of paranoia and Stepford-like guest callers who would eat a copy of his latest book just to land a minute in the limelight. Chris Baker's talk show seems to be Houston's most promising local product, even if an IQ of 70 is sometimes required to truly appreciate the topics at hand. And here's a moment of clarity for sports talk fans everywhere: Your favorite sport's team may have gone all the way, but you haven't done anything!

As a proud Houstonian, I am shamefully jealous of Houston's little sister to the north in terms of talk radio. Big D's tower of babble-on dwarfs our own meager talk radio offerings like a bad case of antennae envy. Their National Public Radio station, KERA, offers an all-talk format for around-the-clock FM talk choices, unlike our own member station KUHF's tryptophan-filled classical format. And in addition to its more vocal public radio, Dallas has an all-talk FM station with a respectable array of programming temperature and flavor.

Houston commuters deserve world-class selection in talk radio, just as we already enjoy world-class selections of everything else.

Houston deserves informative, entertaining talk radio that does not force listeners to choose between Wavy Gravy and the Third Reich.

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