Much like many of you, in the morning all of my radios are tuned to different stations. The kitchen flops between Radio 4, Radio 1 and 1Xtra (what else do you listen to on a DAB over breakfast?); the bathroom, waterproof and FM/AM, does the pirates (dancehall being the audio equivalent of Nivea Sport for Men – waking you up with a start) and upstairs the most recent addition to the family, an Intempo digital number, goes all over the place.

Over the last couple of months though, as I throw on my clothes in the morning I have checking out .977 The Comedy that also goes by the name of Comedy 104. Whether by design or accident, this station has the privilege of being the first of the 86 stations in the ‘Comedy’ genre on my radio, and as such was the first one to be given a go. Since then I have pretty much skimmed through all of the comedy stations (including several that sound like they are recorded at the wrong end of the night in an Austrian bierkeller) and .977 is still probably the most reliable of the jukebox comedy options.

I like my comedy straight up, not-messed-about-with, but I do appreciate that comedy radio provokes a very large range of reactions (my other half can’t stand comedy jukebox radio). What .977 does is give you 3 minute chunks of the world’s best stand-ups (and Jasper Carrot) telling a few jokes. Then it cuts immediately to another stand-up and the cycle continues until the end of time. Contributions are 90% American (thank the Lord) and on any given morning you might hear, as I did today, the likes of Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor and the overlord of comedy – Jerry Seinfeld.

Sometimes the contributions err a bit towards the US’s equivalent of Jethro or Freddie Starr (‘aren’t men and women different?’, ‘anyone else here like beer?’ etc) but you are generally only 5 minutes away from someone with a brain. There is no censorship or mediation whatsoever which can make for pretty uncomfortable listening when segueing from Radio 4 in the kitchen.

A station like this can only have a short listening lifespan: as I am quickly discovering people who listen to a lot of stand-up soon become jaded, hearing the familiar patterns again and again. Also, I have no idea how they are getting the rights to this stuff (I’m not sure how E4 radio with its comedy remit would have existed with international comedy talent 24/7 on the same dial) but for the time being I will still be surfing this station and others like it to get my morning fix of slander and willy jokes.

Check out .977 here.