[Speed Gibson,
Thursday April 6, 2006 at 12:55am]
Reviewing: Balanced Breakfast
WFMP-FM (107.1) targets women, no doubt about it. But real men can enjoy the "Balanced Breakfast with Ian and Margery" heard weekday mornings from 5 to 9. First, some abbreviated stats:
The content is all Ian and Margery Punnett. Margery does her part from home via a "blur line" as she gets their two boys up and off to school. The news, weather, etc is all but limited to two minutes of network news and a local "107 second" segment for the rest.
The content is pretty good, presented in a mostly light manner. They can get serious on occasion. Kirby Puckett had died the week I am reviewing, and they took on the media's coverage of Kirby's personal problems or lack thereof. Then they asked just how much introspection is appropriate at a funeral. It was very good, as you might expect from Ian.
Another good topic was a Bazaar article that being a stay at home mom is now chic, that women today now had more choices than prior generations. They lined up several women callers of the previous generation and had a great discussion, the bottom line being nothing has really changed other than now, yes it's fashionable.
Other topics included how fetching our Driver's License photos always seem to turn out. Botox, divorce, romantic poetry, and even some American Idol snippets. In discussing SAT's and cheating and calculators, I loved this from Margery: "The calculator I used to do long division didn't connect me to some pervert."
It's a good production, too, with a great theme/intro using Nat King Cole's "Just Like Being in Love" and featuring the two boys ("Itchy" and "Scratchy") introducing their parents. The flow is great and I was surprised to see the commercial load reached 30 percent. Other than those jangling awful Menard's ads, the ads seem to blend into the show.
It's very enjoyable, even for men, but it's not for me most days. There just isn't enough news, in fact, hardly any. The weather forecast is once an hour, maybe twice if Ian gets around to it for a few seconds. I need a little more, including sports. Traffic is as needed, which is next to none, so they have that right. By design, it's not drive time radio, but if you're air during morning drive, I think you have to make your listeners a little more current.
Next up: Bill Bennett's Morning in America.
Promos and Commercials: 30%
Content: 62%
News, Weather, etc: 8%
The content is all Ian and Margery Punnett. Margery does her part from home via a "blur line" as she gets their two boys up and off to school. The news, weather, etc is all but limited to two minutes of network news and a local "107 second" segment for the rest.
The content is pretty good, presented in a mostly light manner. They can get serious on occasion. Kirby Puckett had died the week I am reviewing, and they took on the media's coverage of Kirby's personal problems or lack thereof. Then they asked just how much introspection is appropriate at a funeral. It was very good, as you might expect from Ian.
Another good topic was a Bazaar article that being a stay at home mom is now chic, that women today now had more choices than prior generations. They lined up several women callers of the previous generation and had a great discussion, the bottom line being nothing has really changed other than now, yes it's fashionable.
Other topics included how fetching our Driver's License photos always seem to turn out. Botox, divorce, romantic poetry, and even some American Idol snippets. In discussing SAT's and cheating and calculators, I loved this from Margery: "The calculator I used to do long division didn't connect me to some pervert."
It's a good production, too, with a great theme/intro using Nat King Cole's "Just Like Being in Love" and featuring the two boys ("Itchy" and "Scratchy") introducing their parents. The flow is great and I was surprised to see the commercial load reached 30 percent. Other than those jangling awful Menard's ads, the ads seem to blend into the show.
It's very enjoyable, even for men, but it's not for me most days. There just isn't enough news, in fact, hardly any. The weather forecast is once an hour, maybe twice if Ian gets around to it for a few seconds. I need a little more, including sports. Traffic is as needed, which is next to none, so they have that right. By design, it's not drive time radio, but if you're air during morning drive, I think you have to make your listeners a little more current.
Next up: Bill Bennett's Morning in America.