WJUL "Lowell SunRise"

[Aaron Read <aread@speakeasy.net>]

So my automated recording of WJUL's "Lowell SunRise" failed to start this 
morning.  D'oh!!!   But I was able to catch some of the last hour (9-10am) 
and dear god it sounded heinous.   Yes - I'm putting aside the consultant 
hat and putting on the critic hat.  It's never pretty, but it can be 
educational (at least when taken with a grain of salt :-)


Personally, I thought it sounded exactly like the WJUL kids feared: 
commercial radio trying desperately to be full commercial radio while 
skirting the non-commercial/underwriting rules.  Several of the 
underwriting spots were right on the edge of being in violation.  Not to 
mention there were everywhere, it sounded like an underwriting break every 
five minutes.

It also sounded like the majority of the hour from 9-10am was automated - 
there were series of poorly-timed spots and promos run together in that 
telltale-sounding Winamp playlist manner.   Other that that, it sounded a 
lot like a weak version of WBZ-AM.  "The Radio Jewel of the Merrimack 
Valley"  Ugh.   Plus it couldn't possibly sound more out of place than 
compared to the regular WJUL programming.

Now that is a bit of a cheap shot, b/c nothing SunRise could do would 
really sound like the underground rock (or Talk Info Center/Radio Reading) 
that's normally on WJUL.   But...and perhaps folks on the list can help me 
elaborate here...it just sounded "too commercial".  Something a little more 
laid back might've been more appropriate?  I'm not quite sure how to 
describe it...

To their credit, despite the lack of actual news (there was more 
tub-thumping for the Sun's newspaper than actual news going on) at least 
what content they did do was near-exclusively locally-oriented.  Points for 
that.  :-)

In summary: I don't get it...WBUR has a HUGELY successfully public radio 
news format.  Why aren't they emulating that?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aaron "Bishop" Read             aread@speakeasy.net
FriedBagels Consulting          AOL-IM: readaaron
http://www.friedbagels.com      Boston, MA