I grew up watching a lot of media, and while I never had self-confidence to go in it by trade, I no fear being an amateur. I feel more of a newsgathering influencer anyways for fun, and not to be fully serious.

I grew up and still live in the Boston market here on the east coast of the U.S. Wouldn’t trade it for the world. I hibernate and whine about the hot summer days over the cooler winter days. I live in Southern New Hampshire against a really half-as-ed news operation known as WMUR-TV Manchester. I’d aspire to steal some stories and have minifigs do it better then they do!

Anyways the rest is about how I grew up with media

1990-1995

I grew up mostly watching PBS programming (err known at the time as a noun as “Public Television”. ) Sesame, Mister Rogers, was the shows I watched a lot. WGBH actually around 1994, aired many of their 1970s filmed programs, one of them was Zoom that ran around 11:00 am on Saturday Mornings. I’m old enough to have actually seen the first two PBS IDs that ran at the end of the shows on their air.

On the commercial side, I had watched WHDH-TV in the early 90s when it was the bastard child of area TV, always third place plus the aborted merger with WHDH radio that tried to do the poor mans version of WBZ Radio and Television. I had watched a few CBS shows, or had been exposed to some of the programming where News 7 would appear at some point.

Mid to late 1990s

I would later flip to cable and watch also Looney Toons on TNT and Cartoon Network. Cartoon Network launched in late 1992, and given I used to live in a Harron system, for them to take channel that early after inception was interesting in retrospect. I watched The Flintstones and The Jetsons religiously since starting first grade in school. By the mid 1990s, I’d switch to WBZ News 4 (while I wasn’t as media literate, as a child I was like why are they pushing WBZ as the primary brand implicitly.) I also had some exposure to MTV and VH1. This is where I think I like adult alternative music (or as I say chick rock)

By 1999, I tapped into my interest of money and watched hours of CNBC. While CNBC touts it’s RT branding for Real Time, in June/July of 1999, CNBC introduced a fully-real time ticker for all three major markets, as well installing a Silicon Graphics workstation that automated the chart drawing that as kid felt like ages, but a full 8:00 to 6:30 intraday chart took ten seconds to draw – LIVE. Stumbling across this scrappy financial channel with a studio of a drop flooring seen in datacenters and a 700 sq ft facility in Fort Lee, New Jersey was interesting to see, and outputting 15 hours of live financial news

2000s

I got interested into listening to public radio when I was 13. All Things Considered can put you to sleep and Morning Edition wasn’t that bad. I listened to WGBH-FM which ran the bare amount of news, because they had played classical and jazz music. Until the acquisition of WCRB in 2009; the station lacked local interest, while long time competitor WBUR was the WGBH of NPR, but WBUR was very limited on local news, even within the 128 beltway.

By 2001, I consumed a bunch of news on a daily basis, and somehow was able to consume dramas and some sitcoms, mixed in. That year I learned the power of AM radio, Class A to be exact. How a good radio in your car can pick up some nice blowtoarches. While I stumbled across 1010 WINS and WCBS 880 when I used to visit my aunt in Eastern Connecticut, I realized both stations carried up well north of Boston, and to this day, the signals are stronger (if you crank up the volume) because I don’t live near transmission lines made out of metal

WLVI was my 10:00 choice while Fox would spill millions in expanding WFXT/Fox 25 by late 2003.

2005-2010

I would watch The Apprentice (before I realized Donald Trump’s dark side), E.R. The Office mixed in with CNBC and Fox News Channel during the week, when FNC would during the day have 4 live hits from reporters, and a panel discussions in a single instance roughly every 20 minutes with 2 people not at their throats. The primetime shows were decent, and like the daytime it wasn’t in your face. Even shows like Red Eye was amusing to watch, not because it was on FNC, just it happened to be on there. CNBC would relocated to Englewood Cliffs in October 2003, with vibrant set colors and lovely but regressive graphics that had a 1990s feel to it and the great 615 Music theme package, similar to their 1998 package. Like CNBC’s repeated history, they went all blue by late 2005, and it has been virtually the same ever since except for Squawk Box and The Exchange where there’s hint that a vibrant colors could be possible. Those two years really was underrated.

This was the time I didn’t watch as much local news… but if I did, I watched them all, I didn’t have a preference at that time.

I have no interest in media as much, because the media isn’t interested in me.

a 7000′ square foot studio facility, with vibrant and attention grabbing look and feel while people on CNBC was giving you actual market information. It’s not nostalgia in 2021, it’s why people watched them in the first place.

I had several favorite NPR weekend shows, that was impartial, Car Talk, Wait… Wait… Don’t Tell Me!, and On The Media before OTM went more extreme. I tend to lock into WBUR but 90.9’s signal would get staticy, where WGBH-FM lacked that issue. On music I preferred to listen to A/C, so in order of station, it was WXLO in Worcester, WBMX (once on 98.5), and WHOB in Nashua at 106.3. and sometimes WBCN when I felt like it, but felt they were for the snooty people. Really since 2004, the rise of teeny-bopper, fluffy music made me turn away. While I liked to listen to Matty in the Morning, he was really dismissive to any New Hampshire caller, while John Lander at ‘BMX never did, in fact his crew had more New Hampshire ties than Matty would ever have!

2010s – Burnt Out

I consumed a lot of media. The Financial Crisis was bad, CNBC’s Rick Santelli lost it on Tax Day 2009, Hannity went without Colmes, and I noticed while the media had a bias, they weren’t so subtle anymore. TNT was known for Primetime in the Daytime and that same metaphor applied to cable news. I liked to watch the financial channels but the extremist/paranoia or all-about-me depending on the channel.

Local news was severely a joke, and stations that had personality, would loose it, or stations that had a serious approach would go all sensational, and over emotional; and some of the stations that covered signatifant events well were not your typical suspects. The 2011 Springfield tornado, I had on WHDH than I did on WCVB, which ‘CVB did more 7 News styled reporting while 7 News themselves was taking a throwback of News 7 during crisis.

When Bianca deLagarza decided to go on air with a skimpy dress during Hurricane Sandy, I started to notice the ladies dressing down much more. In fact, I couldn’t tell the difference, unless I went to airchecks. It’s funny how that is. I prefer women to dress like she’s in an office on camera, thank you very much.

Local news lost class on TV.

Radio was more of a joke, stations had no guilt to play Lady GaGa every hour, even if they were different tracks, their playlist is out on the Web and no shame of the limited playlist by corporate. All news radio either sounded worse, or just plain stupid, as the years went on, CBS got out of the radio business in late 2017, to be mostly sold to – Entercom. And some of these stations sounded bad, the talent were a joke, and well knowing what happened to WRKO and the scandalous hires of the 00s; and the layoffs… it’s going to get worse.

I watch the news 2, 3, 4 times a week, under 10 minute intervals, unless there’s breaking news, will I watch it in increments of hours. I don’t listen to any music radio or morning shows unless I’m in the car with someone else. It’s not the same like it used to be. The music sucks now. I don’t listen to NPR that much, WGBH radio over time got more personality as Joe Mattheu moved over from almost being chopped at WBZ when Entercom/Clear Channel/Beasely threesome sales were occurring.