Historical Comment

According to legend, back in the late 1950s a radio station owner named Todd Storz was struck by the jukebox playing habits of a bunch of teenagers in a diner some place in Omaha. Noticing that the kids dropped their nickels on the same songs over and over again, he was inspired to invent what came to be known as the Top 40 format for his station, in which his deejays did the same thing those kids did: they played the same big hits over and over again throughout their shifts, and built up hugely loyal listeners among those same youngsters who patronized the jukeboxes. Other radio programmers (notably Gordon McClendon and Bill Drake) would fine-tune the format, which eventually reached a point where some stations didn't even play the whole song, making more time for commercials, jingles, and other bits of business. Within the tightly controlled structure of Top 40, the disc jockeys themselves had to cram a lot of personality into just a few seconds of banter between records and ads, and the best at it became legends (guys like Dick Biondi, Jackson Armstrong, the Real Don Steele-- actually the list is pretty long, with favorites representing every part fo the country). A lot of baby boomers (a group to which I belong) have fond memories of Top 40, but I suspect that is due to the fact that it's rise corresponded to the maturation of rock and roll in the 1960s, so there was a lot of great music that could not be ignored. But most probably don't remember that the format also created hits out of a lot of nondescript bubblegum groups and acts that were promoted as much for their looks as their sound-- that is, music aimed at kids.

Top 40 was based on repetition, sometimes to the point that the audience became sick of some of the songs that they heard endlessly for a few weeks on their favorite station (I'm thinking, for example, of songs liek Terry Jacks' "Seasons in the Sun"). But more often, if the station did it right, they created an atmosphere so familiar, nonthreatening, and comfortable, that you almost couldn't help going back day after day.

I think this was a lesson learned and followed by the producers and programmers of talk radio. Back in this post, I mentioned hearing the same things said over and over again by right-wing radio hosts as I drove across the country earlier this summer. It hadn't occurred to me before that this is just a variation on the Top 40 idea, just done with politics instead of music. Part of what led me to this revelation is that here in Buffalo, there is a station that airs "progressive" talk all day, and it is, for the most part, just as obnoxious and repetitious as the right-wing stuff one hears elsewhere on the dial. Obviously, the perspective is different, but the manner, or format, is practically indistinguishable from the more ubiquitous conservative talk. Even though I tend to agree with them more, the progressive talkers are ultimately no more creative or interesting (especially over the course of more than say an hour) than their more famous counterparts on the right. The big exception, to my ears, is Stephanie Miller, who seems to realize the whole thing is a "show," and treats everything with a healthy dose of humor (ironically, the least offensive right wing host to me is Dennis Miller-- for much the same reason). Stephanie Miller's father was Barry Goldwater's running mate back in 1964, and I suspect that she's seen the inside of the political arena close-up and knows that ideology and principles are hardly at the top of any politician's agenda, and therefore can keep from getting too rapped up in the minutiae of the ideological battleground. Compare her to Randi Rhodes, who I find practically as unlistenable as Michael Savage or Rush Limbaugh for all her hectoring and endless belaboring of points. This format (talk radio, of any stripe), like Top 40, is ultimately designed for the adolescent mind, regardless of how old one actually is. I'd like to think that those who have passed the driving age would seek out and demand something more substantial as a news source, but then maybe most of us have a soft spot for clinging to something simple and unchallenging from our radios, just like in the good old days of boss jocks.