There's an interesting take on Rush Limbaugh and his ilk at this site (I found the link initially at Mark Evanier's site). Beau Weaver, the author of the piece does a good job explaining the negative impact that Limbaugh has had on national political discourse, especially insofar as the talk show hosts have driven more thoughtful, reasoned discussion off the airwaves. I'd argue that, in addition to that, they've largely destroyed what I might refer to as the "art" of radio, which as a medium falls well short of meeting its potential to both entertain and inform. Virtually all of the personality has been stripped from the airwaves (since most successful talk show hosts, right or left, vary little in the personality they present), and the opportunity to offer more creative programming has been tossed away in favor of the cheap production costs that go into replicating the Limbaugh formula. I don't know why listeners don't demand more than a belligerant affirmation of their existing views; when TV first started to drain radio audiences and hence resources in the 1950s, there was an amazing burst of true personality driven programming (much of it tied to the concurrent youth and rock movements), so it can happen. It used to be fun to drive across the country, listening to local radio stations along the way and picking up on the regional differences. Today, such efforts yield endless rounds of Limbaugh, Hannity, and O'Reilly-- without a hair's breadth of difference between them (FM is little better, offering only preprogrammed stations of single genre music per station). I know I sound like a old fogey on this matter, but the only people who can possibly think radio is better today than thirty or forty years ago are just too young to know what they are missing.
Monday, February 2, 2009
The State of Radio
There's an interesting take on Rush Limbaugh and his ilk at this site (I found the link initially at Mark Evanier's site). Beau Weaver, the author of the piece does a good job explaining the negative impact that Limbaugh has had on national political discourse, especially insofar as the talk show hosts have driven more thoughtful, reasoned discussion off the airwaves. I'd argue that, in addition to that, they've largely destroyed what I might refer to as the "art" of radio, which as a medium falls well short of meeting its potential to both entertain and inform. Virtually all of the personality has been stripped from the airwaves (since most successful talk show hosts, right or left, vary little in the personality they present), and the opportunity to offer more creative programming has been tossed away in favor of the cheap production costs that go into replicating the Limbaugh formula. I don't know why listeners don't demand more than a belligerant affirmation of their existing views; when TV first started to drain radio audiences and hence resources in the 1950s, there was an amazing burst of true personality driven programming (much of it tied to the concurrent youth and rock movements), so it can happen. It used to be fun to drive across the country, listening to local radio stations along the way and picking up on the regional differences. Today, such efforts yield endless rounds of Limbaugh, Hannity, and O'Reilly-- without a hair's breadth of difference between them (FM is little better, offering only preprogrammed stations of single genre music per station). I know I sound like a old fogey on this matter, but the only people who can possibly think radio is better today than thirty or forty years ago are just too young to know what they are missing.
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2 comments:
Is that a picture of Mother's old Philco radio that we used to listen to "Just Plain Bill" on? It set on top of our refrigerator in the kitchen and every Saturday afternoon in the fall we listened to the Notre Dame football games. There were a ton of stories. Lux Radio Theater, The Hit Parade on Saturday nights, The Bob Hope Show that we couldn't listen to because we had to do our homework first, but Mother listened to it in the other room. Jack Benny and Charlie McCarthy with Edgar Bergan... to say nothing of Fred Allen and Henry Aldridge. And Mr. Dean, Tracer of Lost Persons. Boy - do you ever evoke memories of growing up in the 1930's. Mom
Mom,
The picture isn't of that radio, but I do still have it sitting on a counter in my bedroom. The tubes long ago gave out, and I've never been able to replace them, so it isn't currently functional. Maybe I should check to see if I can find tubes on-line, as there must be some hobbyists out there who still keep these older models operating.
Dr. John
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