Radio Hosts
October 18, 2018
He listened to the radio in his car recently.
Before, he mainly listened to CDs, mostly music CDs and language learning CDs. But recently, he happened to listen to a radio program in which the male host was speaking about his life. It was not about such exciting things but only happening here and there. But, he liked it and after that he had a habit to listen to the radio while he was driving. In his area, there were 3 AM stations and 2 FM stations available, so he would change the stations depending on what programs were on.

He had a specific memory when he was a kid. He bought a small radio build up kit with his allowance and built up a radio by himself. It consisted of coiled wires and simple circuits. It didn't use any electricity, like a battery. He felt something mysterious when he heard it sound. At that time there was already a black and white TV in his house, so he didn't have any memories of enjoying listening to radio programs.

When he was a high school student, he would listen to a program by a FM radio station. It was broadcasted every Saturday afternoon, and it was popular among his classmates. He liked to listen to the host, who was in his 20s and was from his city, introduce letters from the listeners with their requests. His way of saying things was straightforward. He was different from other announcers in the public broadcasting association, sometimes a little bit radical. But a couple of years after, the announcer was suddenly transferred to another area. He heard that the association didn't like some of the things that he said. After his disappearance, he quit listening to the radio.

After a while when he started to work, he bought a cheap second hand car and the car had a radio. He started to listen to the radio again, although he forgot what he was listening to in those days. After a while, he set a cassette player in his car, and became a listener of music through cassette tapes. Then cassette tapes became CDs. He hadn't listened to the radio so often until recently.

But once he started to listen to the radio, he came to think that some radio programs were good.
Nowadays many cars had a TV, but he didn't want to watch TV while driving because it's dangerous. Besides that, he didn't really like TV so much.

If you use a bus or train, you are able to read a book, a newspaper, a magazine, or to use your smartphone. But, he used his car for transportation.

Listening to the radio had some good points:
Maybe listening to something is less stressful for the brain. If you watch TV, you need to open your eyes and process a lot of information on the screen. If you read a magazine, you need to follow the letters. But while listening, you can relax, sometimes tune in to what is being said, and at other times tune out.

The typical programs ~except for the news, weather forecasts and sports reports~ a host proceeds with the program with conversation and music. They sometimes use letters from the listeners and sometimes they call them in person. Sometimes they have guests and talk with them. Sometimes hosts are duos like two men, or a man and a woman, or two women. Hosts are usually professionals like singers, actors, comedians, writers, announcers, etc.

They vary from young female idol singers to old musicians. The programs depend on their personalities. For example, they talk about somebody's concerns. The listeners might ask about some problems that they have between neighbors, between friends, between a boss and a subordinate, between a husband and a wife, between a parent and a kid, etc.

The answers are from their thoughts and their thoughts are from their living histories ~how their parents raised them, what teachers told them, their relationships with their friends, ideas from the books that they've read, TV programs and movies that they've watched, as well as from other people opinions, from various information from magazines, the internet, etc.

Listeners feel some sympathy and empathy to what the host says because listeners agree with the idea from their own lives. Maybe hosts are people who could sensitively feel others' feelings. These types of programs are popular, like the one that he listened to when he was a high school student.

"But..." he thought, "Why are hosts on the radio better than the hosts on TV? For him, hosts on radio programs seem to be more straightforward to people's concerns. He thought about the reason. "Maybe in the studio, alone in a very quiet room, they can and have to make up their minds about issues in earnest."  












*allowance :小遣い
*circuit :回路
*tune in :耳を傾ける
*tune out :聞き流す
*in person :直接
*duo :二人組
*sympathy :同情
*empathy :共感
*in earnest :真剣に
inserted by FC2 system