FM & AM Radio

Personally I have never been a huge fan of AM Radio the only time I really would listen to it was when I would be in the car with my dad listening to a sports game.   I find listening to FM radio way more entertaining because I would much rather listen to music while driving than people talking about sports or news.  I chose to listen to 92.5 WXTU, which is a country station from the Philadelphia area, and for the FM channel and ESPNS 1230 AM station.  While listening to 20 minutes of FM radio the content was 40% commercials.  The commercials that were in between each song were mainly promoting concerts that XTU is hosting.  When the commercial breaks were longer they were about car dealer ships and Steven Singer jewelry company.   By listening to XTU I learned what concerts were coming up and when they were so for me that was informative because I will be attending some of them.  While listening to AM radio for 20 minutes I was a little confused.  Since I never really listen to this kind of radio I wasn’t sure what was a commercial and what was not because the commercials were all still about sports and the radio station.  I soon learned what was and what was not.  Throughout my time listening to AM radio they had less commercial breaks.  The content of the AM station was at 27.25% of commercials so it had a lot less than WXTU.  The commericals on the AM station were about upcoming baseball and basketball games.   AM radio was way more informative than FM radio.  They were talking a lot about the Mayweather and his history with domestic violence so that was more informational and informative than learning about what concerts are coming up.  It was almost as if I was listening to a documentary on the radio.  I learned a lot about his past with domestic violence and what his future entails.   I thought that AM radio was mostly about sports and the games that were coming up or on at that time but I soon learned that is not necessarily true.         

Monowi, Nebraska

I thought that this blog assignment was very interesting, although I never knew there was anything like this on wikipedia I enjoyed reading some of the articles.  I really had a tough time finding an article to write about even though there were so many options on there.   The article that I found the most interesting was Monowi, Nebraska.  I found this to be the most interesting because the population of this town is one person.   I have never heard of such a thing and honestly didn't even know that was possible.  The town was founded in 1902 and only had a post office, after that shut down there was really nothing to it.  In the 1930's was when they had the peak of their population at just 130 residents.   The village has a total area of only 0.21 square miles. Monowi is located in the far eastern portion of Boyd County, in the northeastern region of Nebraska.  After Monowi lost its younger residents due to them moving to different towns for better job opportunities the population was at just two.  The two residents were a husband and wife, Rudy and Elsie Eiler.  After Rudy passed away if was only Elsie that lived there.  She now has a library in the town and a Tavern that she owns.  Residents from almost 80 miles away come in to her Tavern to eat.  The library and the Tavern have been on a couple of different T.V shows such as the today  show, CBS Sunday morning and also appeared on Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy.  Larry announced on a radio show that he was going to be having a hot dog roast in order to raise money for Elsie.  Although the town is so small over a 1,000 people showed up and they raised an overwhelming amount of money for Elsie.  Elsie is the Mayor of Monowi since she is the only one that lives there.  She also granted herself a liquor license and pays taxes to herself.  In order to secure state funding she also has to produce a municipal road plan every year in order to keep the four street lights that are in the town.  Personally I did learn a lot from reading this because I didn't know that it was possible to have a town with only one person, I just can't see how that would work.  I had no idea that it was possible to pay your taxes to yourself, but I guess since she is the only one there she can't pay anyone else.  I'm also a little confused by it, I'm curious as to who she pays her bills to.  I had never heard of this story before which made it more interesting for me to read.  The only way I can see this information being useful is if you are doing research that has to do with towns with a small population, otherwise I don't really think that this information is important.  Considering the wiki page I found this on is called unusual articles I am not surprised that it was on there because this is a very unusual situation.  Since it is so unusual it definitely deserves to be on wikipedia, I believe that more people should read this since I'm sure not many people know about this.  You can't find just about anything on Wikipedia that is another reason why I wasn't surprised this was on here.  I doubt that you would be able to find this anywhere else because it isn't really anything important, although it is interesting it isn't that important.  I would love to be able to visit it here, it has to be one of the only places in the world that only has the population of one.  If I am ever in Nebraska I will definitely make sure to drive through this small town.           

Product Placement in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Throughout the seasons of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia they use a lot of product placement.  On season five episode three "The Great Recession" there are many different times where this is product placement.  To me this episode had the most product placement throughout the season.  There were also many times throughout the episode where products were shown but I don't believe it was for product placement.  During this episode they are in Dave and Busters a couple of times.   In the very beginning Mac, Charlie and Frank are at Dave and Busters eating dinner.  I believe this is product placement because Frank says how the steak isn't that good and Charlie says back "If you're looking for a better steak in an arcade setting, you are shit out of luck"  to me they are saying that Dave and Busters has tasty food and people should go try it.  Also during most of this episode Mac is wearing a shirt  that has a gT logo on it and under it says Japanese Automotive.  I wasn't really sure if this was product placement or not it could be because he has it on for more than half of the episode but since its a show based in Philadelphia you would think they would be advertising American made cars.  Another very obvious product placement is with coors light.  At the bar they have little logos with coors light on it, then mac and Charlie ask for a drink at the bar and she pulls out a Coors Light bottle.  They say no they want a mixed drink and Deandra says "but this bottle is cold activated look at it doesn't it look delicious, but the mountains they turn blue".  Also Mac says "first thing in the morning I turn on the coors sign to let people know we have nice delicious coors".  This is definitely product placement because they keep saying how amazing the beer coors light is so that the audience will want to go out and buy it.  Also during the episode Charlie is wearing a Magna shirt which is an old cigarette company, after him wearing the shirt it became really popular and was for sale for a little while.  It is no longer on sale but another company made a shirt that is just like it.  Product placement is a great way to get your product out there, especially on popular tv shows.  If you have an audience that really loves the characters on the show they are going to want to do whatever the characters are doing.  Especially if it is a younger audience they are going to want to be like their favorite character so they will do anything and go buy the product they are advertising.