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Music Curation: The Fort Dodge Radio Difference

Fort Dodge Radio's music is personally curated by Founder Bill Grady, drawing on over 40 years of broadcasting experience and a lifetime of passionate music collecting. Unlike algorithmic playlists that rely on listening data and automated selection, every song you hear is chosen from Bill's personal collection of over 700 CDs - music he owns, not licensed catalog streams.

The Collection

Bill discovered CDs back in 1985 while working on an advertising campaign for a local hi-fi audio store client. After the store manager played a couple of tracks from the floor model - the only one the store had - instead of writing a radio ad, he bought it on the spot. His first two CDs - Genesis and Foreigner's "Agent Provocateur" - remain in rotation today. You'll hear deep cuts from these albums like Genesis' "That's All," and "Just A Job To Do," alongside Foreigner tracks including "Growing Up the Hard Way," "Tooth and Nail," and "She's Too Tough." Every CD is documented on Discogs, and Bill continues buying new releases today, from recently discovered live albums to classic reissues. Each disc is ripped as an uncompressed WAV file - a technique learned from his podcasting days that preserves maximum audio quality for the listening experience.

The Philosophy

Fort Dodge Radio's programming approach traces back to Bill's formative years growing up in Fort Dodge, listening to legendary AOR stations like KAAY in Little Rock and Clyde Clifford's Beaker Street overnight show. These groundbreaking stations played album cuts - often more interesting than the hits - with music-heavy, commercial-light programming that prioritized the listener experience. That same philosophy guides Fort Dodge Radio today, with just 4 minutes of advertising per hour and a 70/30 mix of familiar hits to deeper album tracks.

The Strategy

Core artists include Queen, Led Zeppelin, Styx, REO Speedwagon, and the Eagles - guitar-heavy bands that dominated radio during the FM rock and MTV eras. But Fort Dodge Radio goes deeper than greatest hits compilations. Bill programs from top-selling rock albums because, as he notes, "People own the same albums I do." If millions of listeners owned "Back in Black" or "Rumours" on vinyl or CD, they remember tracks five through eight, not just the singles. This creates programming based on shared cultural memory and album familiarity - something no algorithm can replicate. Fort Dodge Radio also tracks artist evolution across decades, carrying the catalog forward as 1970s bands became 1980s solo artists. Eagles tracks flow naturally into Glenn Frey and Don Henley solo work. Genesis connects to Phil Collins' solo career. This approach treats rock history as a continuous narrative, not isolated eras. Pedigree is also a factor. For example, Def Leppard was influenced by Mott the Hoople, who was produced by David Bowie. Each of these artists is played on Fort Dodge Radio, and these musical lineages inform the selection of deep tracks from each artist's catalog.

What Makes Human Curation Different

Algorithmic playlists analyze listening data, genre tags, and popularity metrics. Human curation brings something fundamentally different: personal taste, historical knowledge, and intentional sequencing based on decades of professional programming experience. Bill's selections reflect not just what was popular, but what sounded great when "radio was radio," what represented pivotal moments in rock history, and what creates a compelling listening flow from song to song - this can only come from someone who loves music and knows radio. Every day, Bill personally manages rotation, pacing, and variety - ensuring you never hear the same song twice in a short period while maintaining the perfect balance of familiar favorites and rediscovered album tracks. This is active, hands-on curation by someone who has spent 40+ years understanding what makes great radio, not a set-and-forget algorithm. Fort Dodge Radio represents what radio was meant to be: a music lover sharing a carefully curated collection with a community, one great song at a time.

Young Guns, Big Wins The KVFD/KUEL Broadcast Legacy

This is a rare chapter in American radio: a small-town station, led by a young, innovative leader and an energetic youthful staff, that turned their pride of living in Fort Dodge, Iowa into a string of national NAB Awards.

Read on to see how an unlikely team made history, why those years still matter, and what small stations, and even small towns, can learn from a moment when everything clicked.

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