Finally, a truly unique stunt in Chicago media: today, WXRT has converted itself to all-request radio. For a $100 pledge to the American Red Cross to aid the tsunami victims, listeners get to request a song to be played on the air. The only stipulations are that they have to be under 4.5 minutes and “must conform to FCC standards” which I suppose means no overly nasty stuff.
According the on-air folks, this has been a tremendous success. I’ve been listening since about 9:00 this morning– I’ve heard Frank Zappa, Martha and the Muffins, Shania Twain, XTC, Foreigner, The Cure, Elvis Costello, Kate Bush, Madonna, Firefall, Johnny Nash, John Hiatt, Wilco, Buddy Guy’s version of “Mustang Sally” (!), and the classical version of Aaron Copland’s “Hoedown.”
While it’s great that a charity benefits from this, maybe this is a new model for radio— the audience pays to hear what they want. If anyone in radio management has any sense at all, they would check this out and see what REAL listeners want to hear. (It would be reeeealllly cool if someone posted a set list of all this!)
For those of you reading this on Friday afternoon, this program goes until 5:00 pm CST today– about another two hours. Check the WXRT web site to get the audio stream.