An odd feeling came over me this afternoon as, sitting in one of the less-unhealthy fast-food joints around, I began to focus on the piped-in music. Inexplicably, they were playing an endless series of clips, each from 15 to 30 seconds long, of one song after another: What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding , So Far Away , How Long , Let's Dance (the album version), et cetera. At first I thought it must be a call-in contest to win money by identifying and calling in the correct song titles, but as one clip followed another it became obvious that couldn't be it. So obviously it was an attention-getting stunt of some kind, and it worked: I started listening in more closely to the DJ's occasional patter to find out what was going on, and guess what?

The River is back! Triple-A radio returns to the Detroit (slash-Windsor) market! What prompted this? I have to conclude it's a consequence of WDET abandoning its daytime music programming. Some marketing drone somewhere has identified an opportunity in the 30-to-50, former-English-or-Communications-major demographic. They'll be doing the clip thing all weekend and going to full-length tunes Monday morning. Plus, since it's at the same old spot on the dial, 93.9 FM, there's CanCon to boot! What's not to like?