Public Radio

I’ve been a lifelong fan of radio. I have always listened, whether it was music in my youth or the inimitable CBC in my adult years, or late night classic radio reruns or Toronto Maple Leaf games. I have produced and hosted radio shows at Trent Radio in Peterborough Ontario. And when the internet really got going, I started using it as the best radio in the world.

I’ve always thought that radio was a much more intimate medium than TV. For one thing, anyone could do it. Building a transmitter isn’t that hard and when you finally get on the air you beam yourself right into people’s heads. With TV, you can turn away from the device and cut off your engagement with the visual. With radio, there is no escaping the device. It envelopes you in sound and demands your attention and imagination. It’s as if a web page got transmitted without the graphics and you are forced to fill them in based on the “alt” text.

Okay so that’s a little geeky. Still, I only really wanted to write this post so that I could link to PublicRadioFan.com, which is a real time schedule for pretty much every public, state owned and campus/community radio station in the world. I use this site all the time. So go there, realize the scope of what it offers and tip the owner, Kevin Kelly (no, not THAT Kevin Kelly).