89.9... The Business Station

 

when i was studying in the states, my tuner was only tuned to 94.9, the classic rock station! it was a blast! i had it playing almost all the time, and it introduced me to lots of rock dinosaurs!

but back home in malaysia, i'd rather listen to chinese than english radio stations. they are just so bad, so juvenile, so silly... it seems that the people behind the radio stations only cater to youths. it's all just today's hits, silly boybands, hopeless singers doing inept cover versions, and silly deejays! i really think many of these stations hire radio deejays from some circus. they are THAT bad!

so i was pleasantly surprised when i first listened to bfm 89.9, the business station.okay, call me jaded but the music selection from these folks is soooo refreshing. perhaps i'm biased towards rock music (and this station plays mostly rock) but the whole "attitude" of the station, the programming, the interviews, the deejays and even the website shows folks behind this station really give serious thought to what they do.

the daily interviews are just great! it's a great learning opportunity for everyone to learn, not just from the business end but also about life as there are sessions by life coaches too. heck, the interviews are even saved in mp3 format as podcasts and could be downloaded from the site. i've saved a whole bunch of them and just cycle thru my ipod during some days when i commute by train (and still keep an eye on the occasional pretty lass i come by). so who says guys can't multi-task?

then of course, unlike other radio stations run by seemingly juvenile deejays who think what's going on with britney spears life is more important than issues that may affect your life directly, the deejays here don't yak too much! one of my major turn-off is deejays who just love the sound of their voice, sometimes yaking over nothing and laughing loudly just to fill the airwaves with some noise. grrrrr!!!!!

i also like the way they play with the bfm acronym. there's the finance related "bankers, financiers, money-makers", "bring forth money". there's also other fun acronyms like "bmw, ferrari, maserati"...

but the one i like best is "bond frustrates moneypenny". nice pun!

to me still, the best thing is the music. it's not perfect but it's already a great step in the right direction for malaysian radio. get ready for some ccr, pearl jam, u2, led zep, acdc, sting, eric clapton (early stuff), jimi hendrix, grateful dead, inxs, nirvana...

so tune to this station if you are in kuala lumpur. if not, visit the website, you could hear it live from there too.

http://www.bfm.my