DIALSCAN BALTIMORE, SATURDAY, MAY 9, 2009

I’m not too sure I gave Baltimore a glowing review last time I visited, about a month ago. I guess I expected for Radio Free Charm City to be a bit more, I don’t know, charming. Maybe on a Saturday this is a possibility.

So we start at WBIS 1190, the business station that should, at least on Saturdays, when there’s not too much actual business to be done, billing itself as My Leisure and Information Station. We join it midway World of Boating. My father would appreciate it; he is actually a very good boatsman. I can remember at least twice Dad taking our family bareboating in the British Virgin Islands. Living on board a boat, whether for a day or for a week, is an amazing and altering experience. I should do it again one day, now that I’m older. It’s quite cute that World of Boating is produced by Overboard Productions, Inc., maybe overtly so. Here at 2:00PM EDT, CNN Radio comes on the air with its News on the Hour. Tornadoes, wildfires, and swine flu dominate the two-minute newsbreak from “The Most Trusted Name in News.” Moments later, in a referendum on how boring the management of WBIS thinks boating is, they switch to pre-recorded—yes, that harmful word, pre-recorded—material from Radio China International. Incongruously enough, the anchor on this pre-recorded program, purportedly originating from China is telling me what Pope Benedict XVI is doing. All right, enough of this.

Now, we did not visit WHFC-FM 91.1 when we last sampled Charm City’s radio palate. So you can imagine my delight when I turn over to it to find organ music being played. Baltimore’s most demanding radio listeners, it appears, do not have to go too terribly far for their classical music fix. WHFC is just two clicks down the FM dial from WBJC-FM 91.5, which I’ve heard and loved over the years. WHFC originates from Harford Community College in nearby Bel Air, and looking at its website, appears to have some really neat and funky stuff besides classical music; shows feature jazz music, blues music, Celtic, New Age, just about everything. It’s an honest-to-God variety station. A big, big smile just crossed my face; the Announcer just put on John Williams’ Excerpts from Close Encounters of the Third Kind; Zubin Mehta conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Would you excuse me for about ten minutes while I glory in this?

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Ellen Hopkins just signed off, introducing me to Mendelssohn’s Fifth Symphony, a/k/a his Reformation Symphony; a travel show will supersede the World’s Greatest Music in twenty-eight minutes. If every corporate peon who ever ran a “variety” station largely predicated on playing the same fifty “Soft and Contemporary” in hot rotation every day stopped here to listen to this, at least one of them would be making some drastic changes.

Over at WBJC, which was our next port of call anyway, it’s their Saturday Operafest. There must be an intermission afoot—there’s a roundtable similar to that which you might hear on the Metropolitan Opera’s Saturday Aftermoon broadcasts in the winter. It was evidently pre-recorded; the broadcaster for the less well-known Lyric Opera of Chicago broadcasts is taking us into Pagliacci. I guess opera fans need their fix, too. But I prefer the Met’s majestic broadcasts by a wide margin. Every Saturday for twenty-two weeks, it’s must listening for a happier and more serene life. Since Margaret Juntwait took the broadcasts over in 2004 from stodgy, dry Peter Allen, the Met is Appointment Radio times fifty. There are only two reasons I’d want satellite radio—all the baseball games I’d want; and Met Opera Radio when there’s no baseball to be played. But I’d be missing out on all the great jazz and talk, wouldn’t I? Besides which, satellite radio costs too damn much.

Let’s to the sports stations—and we start at WJZ-AM 1300, which I can tell you contains a little bit of local programming, thank goodness. Most of the rest of the time, it’s ESPN Radio. And just now, it’s SportsCenter Saturday. The Yankees just happen to be in Baltimore this weekend, and that’s exactly who’s under discussion at present. (Funny how the Yankees always seem to be in the city whose radio I’m sampling; can’t imagine why.) Andrew Marchand of the New York Post is trying to explain why the Yanks can’t win in the new ballpark that exhausts all superlatives…their own. At ESPN headquarters, Amy Lawrence holds court, her voice a miniature Tennessee Williams play—Summer and Smoke. Lots of it. In commercial, some dumkampf with no personality inveighs against starting pitchers who can’t throw more than 100 pitches.

We keep moving, realizing that there’s another station I did not visit: WVIE-AM 1370. Not so very long ago, they broadcast women’s programming—Dr. Laura, Laura Ingraham, Laura who was the sixth city councilwoman from the left at the Mayor’s press conference yesterday. Then, at some heretofore unknown point in the last two years or so, it changed formats and broadcasts Fox Sports Radio. Right at the moment, some imbecile thinks that college lacrosse is worthy of broadcast. I promise, only about eight people are listening. Make that seven.

Matthew pursed his lips, took a swig of Aquafina, and pointed his web browser to wnst.com. He clicked on the “listen live” button, and was at least slightly cheered to hear a conversation about the Baltimore Orioles. Matthew found it a bit of a shame to hear it coming from two testosterone cases that had irritating radio voices. And could that possibly have been a smattering of techno music Matthew heard in the background? He knew that not everyone who sat down at the radio mike could be Edward R. Murrow or Vin Scully, but a personality was not too much to ask from a sports-talk host. He should have stayed at WJZ a while longer. Summer and Smoke were just a little easier to take in comparison. With that, Matthew turned off the Windows Media Player for the moment and took another hit of by-now lukewarm Aquafina.

I skip WCBM-AM 680 entirely; a lawyer is on.

By the time I hit WBAL-AM 1090, and realize that Sporting News Radio is on and will be for six big hours, I realize that I have managed to squeeze all the charm out of Charm City’s Saturday. At least for four hours, by which time the Yanks and Orioles will be playing.

By the way, I’d have done a Dialscan during the week; I’ve just been too exhausted to do; please accept my apologies. But know this: the next one will be something entirely different.