Opportunity Cost

There is a cost to everything we do in life. Everything. Try to think of the least expensive way to spend your time - sitting on a bench in the park - and there is a cost. It's called opportunity cost, and it's an economic term.

To explain, say you work at a job where you make $10 / hour. You have a 4-hour shift on Saturday. After work, you are going to a movie with your friends - it costs $10. Your boss asks if you would like to stay an extra two hours to fill in. You decide to go to the movie instead.

The actual cost of going to the movie is $10. That is the accounting cost. The opportunity cost is $20 - $10 / hour for the two hours you could have been working. You never actually paid $20 to go see the movie, but you lost out on the opportunity to earn it.

In the same way, sitting on a bench in the park has a cost because you could be doing something else. The opportunity cost of sitting on a park bench is missing out on reading a book or watching a TV program or talking to your friend.

I have recently encountered the consequences of opportunity cost in a bad way - on my radio. First of all, let me explain how I have my car radio set up. I have six stations saved. On my way to work, I like to hear talking - I think music puts me to sleep. On the way home, I like music to sing along to. If none of my six stations have something I am interested in hearing, I scan the other stations - usually looking for one particular Sugarland song in particular (the opportunity cost of not listening to country stations is that if the one song you like is country, you won't hear it)!

My stations are as follows:

1. Mixed rock. The morning show is fun with lots of prizes, people calling in, laughs, jokes, and more. It makes you feel like you're with a popular crowd just to listen to it.

2. The Lawrence Station. This station plays some good songs every now and then, but then you have to put up with the sickening feeling you get in your stomach from the constant Jayhawk propoganda. Yuck. In the morning there is a show called the Bob and Sheri chatroom - people call in and talk about a subject. I have heard some crazy stories on it!

3. This is my favorite station both for music and talk. The morning show is two guys that crack me up and have fun games and informational tidbits. I usually can hear a good song on this station.

4. Christian station. Now that the dysfunctional married couple is no longer hosting the morning show, it's actually interesting sometimes, but the music is not varied at all. Even songs I like are overplayed.

5 & 6. These are both light rock stations. They have morning shows, but they play a larger percentage of music in the morning. The only difference I know between the two is that at night 5 plays Delilah and 6 plays John Tesh. Also 6 plays Christian music on Sunday mornings.

Now that you know what my choices are, I will tell you my problem. Chances are you've had the same problem. When I get in my car (usually to go home after work) I hear an advertisement. So I switch to the next station: advertisement. Then the next three are songs I don't like, and then one more advertisement. :(

I try again, hoping that either one of the advertisements or songs will have just ended, and a great new song will start. Still nothing. Out of desperation, I settle on one station (say #5) and listen to a song I only halfway like. When that's over, I start my channel surf again, only to discover that station 1 was playing my song! You know - that song that's fairly new and you just can't get enough of it? And by the time I get back to station 1, it's over.

That is opportunity cost at its finest. If I had kept channel surfing for just a few seconds I would have heard a five-star song, instead of a three-star song. Now I've had to waste 3 minutes of my drive home on a song I barely like, and I didn't get to hear the good song.

The crux of the matter is that once you catch the tail end of your song on a station, you know it's going to be a while before they play it again. Your only hope to hear the song now is to go to another station. (This is the problem with my Sugarland song - whenever I hit a country station, they are playing a Sugarland song, but it's the wrong one).

As of right now, I have no idea how to fix this problem. If I stay on one station, I am essentially multiplying this effect five-fold by never listening to the other stations. I suppose I could just buy the song on iTunes and listen to my iPod in the car. But you miss out on some of the fun by not listening to the radio in the car.

And once again, we're back to opportunity cost.