Contact Radio: Raising Awareness in the NW
By Kelley Guiney
If you're looking for something to do on those notoriously cold, gray Sunday nights in the Northwest, you can have an interesting, enlightening evening without leaving your home. From 6 to 8 p.m., at 1150 AM on your radio dial, you can tune in to Contact Talk Radio, a radio show that explores many avenues of personal empowerment in a talk show format. The program, founded by hosts Cameron Steele and Royal Adams, brings groundbreaking authors, musicians, teachers, healers, scientists and philosophers right into your living room, and provides in-depth interviews during which listeners are invited to call in with questions and commentary.
Steele and Adams explain that their vision for the station is
to provide a forum to exchange information that will help people
explore their own personal gifts and being on a deeper level.
Past guests have included such best-selling authors as Neale
Donald Walsch and Barbara Hand Clow; future guests include Carolyn
Myss, Shakti Gawain and James Redfield. The idea is to expose
Northwest listeners to both internationally renown and local folks
who offer new ways of thinking about ourselves, our environment,
and the cosmos. A wide range of topics are presented, from the
history of human catastrophe and recovery to new methods of water
purification; natural health care and meditation practices to
alternative energy sources. It's a thought provoking combination
of disciplines which all have some sense of spirituality and raising
awareness as their common bond.
Be sure to stay tuned until the very end for a highlight of the
program, as the last hour is dedicated to a music segment that
is very likely to send you down to East/West books in Ravenna,
where all featured books and music are sold. The program showcases
excellent artists whose music is created to reach the listener
on a deep level. Many different genres are presented, from world
music to eastern to artists with such a unique combination of
influences that they are a genre unto themselves.
One of the most enjoyable elements of the show is the enthusiasm
and sincerity of its hosts, Cameron Steele and Royal Adams, who
have obviously researched the topics, read the books, and are
prepared with in-depth questions. Their enthusiasm and warmth
keeps the energy level high, the atmosphere welcoming and the
content interesting throughout the program.
Another pleasant feature of the program is, believe it or not,
is the advertising, which is not the usual, obnoxious fare that
makes you want to switch the radio off. These are valuable and
often alternative services and products and the ads are clear
and straightforward. They add to the feeling of integrity that
permeates the show. Kudos goes to the show's producer, Lucia
Monetti Steele, who has taken on Contact Talk Radio's advertisement
copy writing as one of her many duties.
Steele has a story of his own to tell about how Contact Talk Radio came into being. After hosting a similar TV program in Vancouver, B.C., Steele moved to Seattle with a vision of creating the same type of forum here in Seattle. It took him two months and an enormous level of commitment and determination to make it happen. His story is an example of what a commitment to vision can bring about-he wrote a post-dated check to the radio station without knowing exactly where the funds were coming from, and spent the next three weeks contacting sponsors and raising the necessary advertising dollars. As Steele describes, "It didn't enter my conscious mind that it wasn't going to happen. In fact, all I knew was that it was going to happen. It was a matter of making my mind up and setting about how to do it."
This fierce level of determination and a can-do attitude brought
into being a show that continues to affirm these qualities. Be
sure to tune into KNNW, 1150 AM from 6 to 8 p.m. to beat the Sunday
evening blahs. For more information on Contact Talk Radio, visit
the Web site at www.contactradio.info.