You're Listening To...

I love to talk. That's no secret.



It's been a couple of years since I last hosted "The Sports Show with Brad & Shan" on 1080AM here in the Marianas, but my love for radio hasn't diminished one bit. While I miss the relative notoriety that broadcast radio provides, the thing I miss the most is my voice.

Our show gave me the opportunity to say what I want every morning and get paid for doing so. Sure, the money was lousy but the benefits were amazing! I got to have people tune in to listen to whatever it was that Shan and I wanted to say.

Our program brought the top sporting news stories of the Marianas and the world to our listeners in Saipan and Tinian. We'd like to think Rota caught the show as well but the signal probably never made it out that far.

Going in, I knew that there would be plenty of upside brought about by the show. Notoriety, marketing potential, a cross-promotion for our sports section in the Saipan Tribune, and the ability to shape the collective sports focus in the Marianas were all but a few of the benefits in store for us.

What I didn't expect from the experience was that I would find my true calling. For years, I was told that I've had too much time on my hands to come up with some of the goofy things that come out of my mouth.

Suddenly, the things that were stupid of me to say became entertaining and engendered a following of listeners unseen in the Marianas. It might sound like I'm tooting my own horn (which I am), but we really had something special.

I often talk too much and tell stories that are too long-winded. That's perfect for radio! I never had difficulty filling air time with topic-laden chatter. Talkative people need to be in radio. The best thing is that we don't even have to be attractive!

So why do I bring all of this up in the dusty ol' blog this morning? Because I'm excited about the arrival of a microphone I bought for the purpose of podcasting. What will I talk about? Well, I enjoyed giving the Commonwealth report for the Pacific News Center, so I think I'll start with a daily review of the CNMI's top stories.

If that feels good enough then I won't get too deep into the process. I've got a few ideas in mind should I enjoy it too much, but there's no need to get carried away just now. My best case scenario would be to sell my pieces to local radio stations or for them to be picked up by the folks in Guam.

In the meantime, I need to come up with a name for my radio news idea. I want to get a something that will work well for tags at then end of my reports. My line with the Pacific News Center was, "Reporting from Saipan, Brad Ruszala, PNC News."

I always liked saying that.

While I wait for the microphone to get here I'll continue to work on the naming process.

*Thanks to Lewie Tenorio for creating our show logo and animation!