Anyone listening to the radio lately?

The last month or so has been very disrupted for me: Mad rush at work before Eid, then a 2 week vacation, and now 2 weeks back in Muscat playing catch-up after my leave.

I have found myself in my car a lot lately. Sitting in traffic. What on earth is going on with Ghala? It's total gridlock there every day - I'm glad I do not have to work there every day or I think I'd be riding a motor bike.

So with all this time spent sitting in traffic, I have been listening to the radio occasionally, and have noticed a few changes - have you?

Firstly, as previously reported on this blog, Rachel has left - I wont miss her, I just didn't like her style, and honestly wondered why she remained in her job for so long. It now seems that the music being played is a lot more current, and Darren Shortt seems to have kicked his breakfast show up a notch - I like the Nathan segment, and the ice cream song (even though I hardly ever get it - names of things was never my strong point).

Other than the odd advertisement for the 80's night this weekend, I have not yet heard the new girl Erin's show, but I'm guessing that she will be starting soon. It'll be good to hear a new voice, if only for a change - but her voice seems to carry well on the radio. Perhaps I'm just biased to North American accents ;)

The widely spread "secret" that a new radio station is to launch now appears to be actually happening - I'm told that within a few weeks a new English language radio station will be launching nationwide here in Oman. It's format has been rumoured to be the following:

Morning show with a live DJ, rolling music until the drive-time and then another live DJ, and then more rolling music until the next morning show. I for one am not sure what to think about this. I remember when Hi FM started it's test broadcasts, and it was just non-stop music - and it was great - for a week, until all the songs in the rotation were well and truly played to death.

I have to wonder how effective that will be as a competitive radio - if I want non-stop music, I have access to that via my own cds and mp3s, and if I'm bored of a track I can always skip it - "why do I listen to the radio"? I thought to myself recently.

And, I realised, for me, I listen to the radio for different reasons at different times. In the mornings I'm listening because I'm driving to work, and I find the traffic reports are helpful - I have to drive to a lot of different places for my job. I also like the banter, and, shock horror, the music seems fresher recently. In the day, it's for some music that is not in my car's music system, and on Wednesday nights I like the house mixes. Which while we're on that for a moment: Hi FM appear to have obtained the rights for Roger Sanchez, a prominent house DJ from Miami and well known by aficionados of the world famous Winter Music Conference held annually there. Being someone that likes house music (amongst many other types of music) I look forward to hearing some of his mixes on the radio.

Now, those readers of my blog that have been following me for a while will know that I like to poke fun at Darren, and while researching for this post I saw the following picture:


What on earth is going on with that waist coat Daz!?!

I don't actually know the name of this new radio station - if you do, can you share it with us all?

Are you listening to HiFM lately, or am I the only one?! What do you all think about it? I honestly feel it's gotten a lot better than it was - how about you? If you do listen to the radio - why do you listen?

le fin.