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a53 12/30/06 - Half the resolution is optimism
a52 12/23/06 - As the solstice turns
a51 12/16/06 - Shopping for Person X
a50 12/09/06 - My dinner with Joni
a49 12/02/06 - Want quirky sex? Turn to fiction
a48 11/25/06 - For whom the biological clock ticketh
a47 11/18/06 - Eviting trouble
a46 11/11/06 - More information, less reading
a45 11/04/06 - Slogans over sentences
a44 10/28/06 - Avid consumers, or just crazy?
a43 10/21/06 - Road Rage on Information Superhighway
a42 10/14/06 - The State of Student Activism
a41 10/07/06 - $4k Cat Is Nothing to Sneeze At
a40 09/30/06 - Housing Party Collapses
a39 09/23/06 - TiVo Tyranny -- The Latest in Self-Loathing
a38 09/16/06 - What's Do-ing in Fashion
a37 09/09/06 - Gentlemen, Start Your Clocks
a36 09/02/06 - Celebrating Labor -- by Working
a35 08/26/06 - JonBenet Wasn't the Only Victim
a34 08/19/06 - Jack FM May Be Annoying, But Jill's an Airhead
a33 08/12/06 - The Upside of Marrying Down
a32 08/05/06 - The Dope In All Of Us
a31 07/29/06 - Sweating Your Way to Enlightenment
a30 07/22/06 - Can't Get Enough Baby Talk
a29 07/15/06 - Behind Batwoman's Gayness
a28 07/08/06 - I'm with Google
a27 07/01/06 - Sadists in stilettoes
a26 06/24/06 - Coulter's a satirist -- really?
a25 06/17/06 - Models hawking model homes
a24 06/10/06 - Eyesores of L.A.
a23 06/03/06 - Lies, damn lies and marriage statistics
a22 05/27/06 - The Madonna diet
a21 05/20/06 - Goodbye to you, Mr. Smiley
a20 05/13/06 - Men with weak chins
a19 05/06/06 - Man of our dreams
a18 04/29/06 - Kaavya's so not happy ending
a17 04/22/06 - Guilty moms, the next generation
a16 04/15/06 - Major decisions for minors
a15 04/08/06 - Surveying the cultural manscape
a14 04/01/06 - Hedgehog nation
a13 03/25/06 - Sticky family values
a12 03/18/06 - Love 'em, hate 'em or clean the house
a11 03/11/06 - Middle school confidential
a10 03/04/06 - Crowding out a right to choose
a9 02/25/06 - Who's the idiot now?
a8 02/18/06 - Zillowing hits you where you live
a7 02/11/06 - The No-Om Zone: Yoga for Winners
a6 02/04/06 - Wrestling with the 'Heidi' effect
a5 01/28/06 - Harassed, or just bummed?
a4 01/21/06 - Public radio, private lives
a3 01/14/06 - Throwing the book at reality
a2 01/07/06 - A breakthrough called 'Brokeback'
a1 01/02/06 - Evolving resolving
 
     
Jack FM May Be Annoying, But Jill's an Airhead
A radio station for women says it's for bad girls, but really it's just bad.
August 19, 2006
BEING A WOMAN and all, I'm supposed to like woman-ish things. Like soy drinks. And ceramics. And any cable show that combines wall stenciling and spontaneous crying. "Women's culture" is everywhere; the cable companies do us the favor of grouping the female-oriented channels together like bunches of daisies, and the entire front sections of chain bookstores are mostly devoted to the coffee-table books and chick lit that women apparently devour in far greater numbers than men.
Maybe that's why I've always loved radio. Its lack of a visual element has always implied a sort of gender neutrality.
Sure, there are hyper-masculine shock jocks and earnest, feminine call-in advice shows, but there's something about radio — maybe the fact that most of us listen when we're alone — that's personal rather than social and, by extension, taps into our "personhood" rather than our maleness or femaleness.
But no more. I've recently realized there's a radio station in Southern California that's just for women. Think of it as calcium supplements or Secret deodorant for your ears. It's called Jill FM, and it can be found at 92.7, although, because of its relatively few transmitters, it can't yet be found very easily.
It plays artists such as Dave Matthews, John Mayer and Faith Hill, as well as some "deep cuts" from the past. Even though you can hear this stuff on regular, coed radio stations, we know Jill FM is a girl thing because the logo, on the website, is a lipstick smudge. Also, the promos feature a saucy female voice saying things like "Jill says: 'The only thing more unreliable than an Italian car is the man who drives one.' "
I stumbled on Jill FM when I veered slightly to the left of 93.1 Jack FM, that no-request, no-DJ station that purports to be absurdly eclectic but, I've noticed, seems to play the B-52's "Rock Lobster" at least 500 times a week. I thought Jill was affiliated with Jack, but when I called up Robert Christy, general manager of Jill FM, I learned that she's very much her own woman.
"We decided that Jill isn't a radio station but a person who owns a radio station," Christy told me (in reality, the owner is Amaturo Group of L.A.).
"Sure, women listen to Jack FM," he said. "But it's really for guys. Women like lyrical music. For instance, they like Queen's 'Killer Queen' but not 'We Will Rock You,' at least not all the time."
Though Jill FM's playlist is proprietary, Christy describes it as "north of 2,000" and said the station thinks of the playlist as "Jill's iPod."
Christy seemed to know a lot about Jill. "She grew up in Southern California," he said. "She loves movies and has several cars, though we'll never know exactly what kinds of cars."
IT TURNS OUT THAT Jill is the product of a "filter," which is radio-speak for a focus group that determines what appeals to a particular demographic.
The filter decided that Jill's keys to success were "brains, an excellent education, hard work and a little help from Dad." They're not sure how old she is, and she may not have kids, but she probably has a niece who plays a big role in her life. Her best friend is Marcy, the woman who does the station promos (in reality, Marcy is an actress who prefers to remain anonymous).
Does Jill have a lot of money? "Enough to own a radio station!" Christy said. "She has a nice house, but we never get invited. She skis and has a mountain bike. One of her cars must be a convertible, maybe a Mercedes coupe because women love that car. She also has a hybrid."
What does she do for fun?
"I can tell you that she would not go to a sweaty bar at the beach," Christy said. "She likes to drink cosmopolitans, but after climbing out of the water from surfing, she'd enjoy a cold beer. She'd never drive drunk, possibly because she might have learned her lesson in the past. She might have a bad-girl streak. Also, she has three dogs: a cocker named Joe, a springer named Jerry and a poodle named Tony — that's for Tony Blair. Plus she has a Persian cat."
In other words, except for the menagerie, which is a little north of what's widely acceptable in a fabulous, always-on-the-go gal, we're looking at a composite sketch of the perfect woman. Sophisticated yet down to earth, responsible but a little wild, probably childless but definitely not child-averse, Jill is part self-made woman (read: independent) and part Daddy's little girl (read: not that independent).
Like an Internet personal ad or a Hollywood studio picture, Jill is designed to offer something for everyone, or at least everyone within her demographic: women between the ages of 25 and 54.
I'm in that demographic, so why do I want to punch Jill in the face? Maybe because the fancy house and all those cars makes her sound a lot like Barbie. Or maybe because radio is inherently about mystery, and it's hard to be mysterious when you've revealed the names of your pets.
On the other hand, maybe I'm just jealous of the Mercedes coupe.
© Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times
 
© 2008, Meghan Daum
 
Meghan Daum Quality of Life Report