It’s the mid-1980s. Time for bed. I hit the light switch and pull the sheets over my head. From the tent-like bubble of darkness, one hand reaches for the clock radio sitting next to my pillow. I press the “sleep” switch. “Click.”

They appear. Those familiar voices talking about news, culture, politics, sex and crime. Talking about people’s personal problems and, naturally, assigning blame for them.

It’s talk radio in Los Angeles. I close my eyes and allow those voices to go deep in my head as I keep the sleep at bay for a little while longer. Voices belonging to the likes of the Poor Man, hilariously offering up good and bad advice to troubled teens. Or Ira Fistell, a talk-radio host and virtuoso conversationalist who invited listeners to call him up and talk about anything on their minds. Or Paul Harvey, giving us “The Rest of the Story” tales with perfect timing and his dry-witted delivery.

Twenty years later, many of these kinds of radio personalities have fallen by the wayside or been railroaded by the recent wave of right-wing hosts that have flooded the airwaves. But I can still remember with crystal clarity listening to them as a child—those long-ago voices still linger in the lost airwaves of my mind.

Steve Reed thinks he knows why it’s so. Reed is vice president at CSU Monterey Bay and oversees radio station, KAZU-FM (90.3), a National Public Radio affiliate based in Pacific Grove that is owned by the CSUMB Foundation.

“People see better on the radio,” Reed says. “There are no boundaries. We know from cognitive research studies that people can recall almost an entire radio broadcast verbatim several hours after they heard it.”

In contrast, if someone reads an article, Reed continues, they may at best remember the subhead or maybe a single line of what they’ve read. Therein lies part of radio’s power to inform and persuade, even in the face of a exploding number of alternative media options available to consumers.

In Monterey County, two FM radio stations are staying true to the mission of informing and entertaining local audiences with talk-based formats and without commercials. KAZU (90.3) is one of them. KUSP (88.9) is the other.

While both stations provide National Public Radio programs, including All Things Considered and Morning Edition, KUSP in Santa Cruz provides a talk show —Talk of the Bay—in which people can call in live and pose questions.

KAZU used to have it’s own talk show, called The Scoop and hosted by longtime journalist Lewis Leader. But in the spring of 2004, it was canceled.

Leader says the departure of his show has left a hole in Monterey media that can’t be filled with other types of news. “We have very smart and plugged-in people living in Monterey,” Leader says. “Local talk radio is something we need more of. There’s very little that compares to the spontaneity of talk radio, and to how it creates public access to talk with public figures.”

Leader says issues like the high cost of housing and transportation are ideal to be discussed in a long-format local talk radio show.

Reed says KAZU has no concrete plans to start up a talk show anytime soon. In the meantime, Monterey County listeners can depend on Santa Cruz-based Talk of the Bay to fill that niche.

Deb Hopewell has for the last year been the producer of Talk of the Bay, which is broadcast every weekday at 10am-11am on KUSP. In the classic tradition of talk radio, the first few minutes of the show feature a question-and-answer session between the host—which varies—and guests that span a wide spectrum of interests.

Last week, for instance, one guest was French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, who was interviewed by KUSP’s Robert Pollie about his 9-month road trip across the US. A week before that, Watsonville City Councilmember Ana Ventura Phares was given an entire hour to talk about her candidacy for a state Assembly seat.

The second part of the show, however, gives Talk of the Bay its edge: callers are allowed to dial in and ask guests their own questions live.

“It’s about involving the community in the discussions,” Hopewell says. “That’s a huge priority for us and we do it as much as we can.”

For example, when Phares was on, one caller from Watsonville was able to grill her about the rise of the Mexican gangs driving down from Santa Cruz and wreaking havoc in Watsonville.

Hopewell says computer technology is now expanding the reach of radio, providing for a potential radio revival of sorts. Both KUSP and KAZU offer live broadcasts of their station via their Web site, and KUSP even has an archive of Talk of the Bay shows going back nearly two months that people can download and listen to anytime of the day or night.

“You have a lot more freedom with radio these days,” Hopewell says. “Plus with radio, you can usually go a lot more in depth on one topic than you’ll see on television.”

Reed agrees. He says public radio stations like KAZU, which regularly airs local news segments produced by news director Ben Adler, have increased the number of their listeners since Sept. 11, 2001.

“I’m sad to say, war, conflict and conflagrations are good for all local news outlets,” Reed says. “And it’s certainly true for us.

“Our listeners now tend to listen to us three to four hours a day.”

Besides the fact that they don’t have commercials, Reed says what sets apart public radio stations (who are funded largely by listener and private donations) is that they people go to them for the content of their shows, which aren’t tilted to the left as many believe they are.

“We’re not growing based on radio personalities, unlike AM radio,” Reed says. “Part of it has to do with our ability to talk to people without exaggerating or screaming at them, and without painting the world as an easy-to-understand place of stark constrasts.”