At first listen, Columbia radio station 92.1 FM The Palm might sound like just another soft rock station. But after spending some time listening to the station, it’s easy to hear The Palm’s defining feature: the culture of Columbia and the surrounding area is deeply embedded in the station, right down to the song choice.
The Palm, which uses the Adult Album Alternative format, started in June 2012 and has since launched a series of initiatives to make its content truly local. These include the LAB, or Listener Advisory Board, in which listeners can go online and vote for songs they want to hear; Cola Daily, an online Columbia newspaper that works closely with the Palm to deliver news on the air and the Save 30 Store, an online store on which the Palm partners with local businesses to sell discounted gift cards.
While all of these efforts to engage with the community might sound like a new idea, music director Mike Allen says The Palm is actually helping radio return to its roots.
“Radio used to be the biggest media that was close to your house,” Allen said. “The national corporations kind of took that away, and I think it took away what made radio special. That, and the news element, bring it all back together, and bring you back into the community, in a way that I think is not replaceable.”
Allen has been in the South Carolina radio business for 25 years, working in Greenville and Charleston before coming to Columbia for The Palm. His affinity for the world of radio and his reverence for its past are clear, and even though The Palm is run by a company that manages several other stations in different cities, Allen is adamant that this actually improves the quality of The Palm.
“If you’re at a single-owner, smaller company, like the last company I was with, it’s much more likely that you’re just talking to the people in your building,” Allen said. “The advantage of having multiple ears in this company is that we all kind of do the same thing, we’re all kind of looking at the same information, and the LAB actually helps us fine-tune that as well, because what really goes well in Wilmington, North Carolina, wouldn’t necessarily go really well here.”
While the music makes up the body of The Palm, perhaps the most remarkable part of the station is Cola Daily, which has a small team of full-time reporters who work to keep listeners updated on local current events via radio.
“We’re not just getting sound bites for the sake of sound bites,” Brindy McNair said, managing editor of Cola Daily. “We’re trying to tell you what your neighbors think, and what’s happening. You know, West Columbia was really stoked about being able to have chickens in their backyard, and a bigger newspaper would be like, ‘nobody cares about that story,’ but people are freaking out about that … so it’s those divisive issues that, from a thirty-thousand foot view, are really too small to care about, but here on the ground, in the trenches, that’s what people actually care about.”
For both new and longtime Columbia residents, The Palm is a great way to get to know the local flavor. As Allen and McNair create content for the station, they keep USC students in mind.