John Y’s Musings from the Middle: The mind of a child vs the mind of an adult

The mind of a child vs the mind of an adult. (Or how Sirius radio works)

A child’s view of the world is very different from how we view the world as an adult. When we are young we are naive and innocent. But as adults we are experienced and wise.

When I was 7 and 8 years old and being driven to Wilder Elementary School we would listen to WAKY radio. I had become a music fan and –though I loved the music—was mostly amazed by how I imagined, logistically, radio pop stations made it all work.

I believed that bands would come from all over the country to go into the WAKY studio and play one song and then leave and make room for the next band. Sometimes twice in one day if they had a popular song.

I figured commercials allowed the next band time to set up but suspected even with that extra time if must really be tough moving in and out the musical equipment for different bands all day every day just so each could play a single song.

Today I am an adult and am experimenting with Sirius radio. On Sirius, I can listen to whatever kind of musical bands I am in the mood for on the radio. And no commercials.

My adult mind is mature enough to figure out that since there are no commercials there is no way each band’s equipment gets moved in and out of the radio studio. My mature and experienced mind knows that the Sirius radio stations must already have all the possible instruments on hand for each band to use. And that’s how they manage to play music all day without commercials.

But as wise and knowing as I am today at 51, I don’t understand why AM and FM stations competing with Sirius haven’t figured this out and are doing it too.

Of course, some radio stations gave up altogether and just hire people to talk all day long about news. All these stations have to do is buy a whole bunch of musical instruments and they could have great bands in the studio playing top 40 hits all day everyday instead. Why this isn’t happening–even with my adult mind– is totally baffling me.