Described is a communication system including wireless client devices. In the described system, the client devices may be wrist-worn watches such as are in common use today, except that the watches are specially configured to receive transmissions from broadcast towers. A client device is associated with one or more home service regions, and is configured to receive personal messages on a home channel when in the home service region. The client device employs a self-assignment method to identify and select a home channel without the need for interaction by a user. A tower discovery method is employed to identify broadcast towers and available channels within a service region. A failover method is employed to identify a change in the broadcast system, and take appropriate action such as, for example, changing to another broadcast tower, selecting another frequency, selecting a sleep mode, as well as others.