When I’m traveling, I always like to listen to a local radio station during my morning run. This morning I was in Naples, Florida on the sidewalks of U.S. 41. This habit comes from years in the business and years of running. I tuned to a country station, hoping to get a flavor for the area. When I was first in radio, saying “Hell” on the radio was frowned on by the FCC with threats of fines. I was surprised to find a radio station that branded itself “Hell Yeah 93.7. When I got back to my hotel room to cool off and write this blog, I discovered that they had just changed their name from “Trump Country.” Only in Florida!

Apparently, station programmer Rob Morris claimed that “Biden’s team contacted us, and we were afraid we’d lose our license, our license to broadcast, if we didn’t change it. So we went ahead and changed it.” After all, they are WHEL. I’m sure the change generated lots of publicity and whether good or bad, it’s all great in the media industry. It’s owned by Sun Broadcast Group.  I’m just glad to be retired and enjoying the Florida sunshine, although the humidity is much higher just two hours south of Venice. We head to Miami this afternoon for the final week of our travels and other local radio stations to critique. 

A sunset picnic was the highlight of yesterday’s activities that included a few Corona’s to help fight Corona. Our Indianapolis friends had a great beach set-up, while the weather was perfect. Sun, surf, and sunset is the ideal way to spend retirement, rather than the TV and more TV that we’ve been stuck with the past few months. It’s fabulous to escape from the dark gray skies of Portland for a few weeks. We’ve already done a lot of reconnecting with family and friends from afar in just our first few days. Will there be even more fun! Hell Yeah!