KUTX.org
Sure, this station has been the flagship for my show for over a decade, but I love it regardless. It’s intentionally eclectic while still being programmed in a way that keeps it listenable. It’s genuinely Austin in a way few things are. The DJs know stuff beyond Wikipedia. And they’re live and local, unlike so many stations.
KOKE.fm
I don’t listen to KOKE as much as I used to, now that we no longer live in Austin. (They no longer have a terrestrial signal but it still is a station to listen to while driving around central Texas.) It’s a smarter and deeper country station than most.
WNXP.org
WNXP is pretty clearly modeled after KUTX and for good reason. But it is its own thing and sounds like Nashville—not the polished stuff on Broadway or whatever, but it sounds like Nashville in the same way KUTX sounds like Austin. Great DJs, who seem to be music people first and radio people second. Do I wish they carried my show, or at least a family show? I do.
WRSI.com
WRSI is a very long-standing commercial AAA station in western Massachusetts (a/k/a the Pioneer Valley). My radio show was based there for a bunch of years and they recently dropped it, and that’s all right. I almost never listen to it except when I want a less challenging but still eclectic station and I want to be reminded of living in Northampton. They have essentially none of the same staff as when I was there (presumably that’s part of why they dropped the show!) and they are probably a bit more conventional than they were, but it’s still a good example of what local radio can be. It’s almost entirely voice-tracked, but voice-tracked by people who live there.
