From the 1920s to the 1950s, radio was the entertainment source for millions. Two of the primary themes of radio serials were mysteries and adventure. This is a detailed analysis of the important programs in these genres - ""Jack Armstrong,"" ""The Green Hornet,"" ""Sergeant Preston,"" ""Tom Mix,"" and more. Each entry includes type of series, broadcast days, air dates, sponsors, network, cast and production credits, and a comprehensive essay. When, as often happened, the series landed in other media, that is examined as well.

"This book adds immeasurably to our appreciation and understanding of the power the aural medium possesses to mirror and shape culture." -- Communication Booknotes Quarterly

From reviews of the first edition: "The magic of [a] wildly colorful chapter in broadcast history lives on in this entertainingly informative look at the forces and the people who contributed to the rise of the medium." -- Chicago Tribune "Characters like Wolfman Jack, Reverend Ike, Norman Baker, "Dr." J. R. Brinkley, Pappy O'Daniel and others were master showmen and tremendously successful salesmen. Secret-formula medicines, magic prayer cloths, Crazy Water Crystals, and goat-gland rejuvenations are just part of this often hilarious telling of this outrageous period in broadcast history." -- Variety "If you're wondering where Herbalife, Home Shopping Network, No-Money-Down Seminars, and Jim and Tammy Bakker found their inspiration and techniques, look no further than this superb book." -- Dallas Morning News

Before the Internet brought the world together, there was border radio. These mega-watt "border blaster" stations, set up just across the Mexican border to evade U.S. regulations, beamed programming across the United States and as far away as South America, Japan, and Western Europe.

This book traces the eventful history of border radio from its founding in the 1930s by "goat-gland doctor" J. R. Brinkley to the glory days of Wolfman Jack in the 1960s. Along the way, it shows how border broadcasters pioneered direct sales advertising, helped prove the power of electronic media as a political tool, aided in spreading the popularity of country music, rhythm and blues, and rock, and laidthe foundations for today's electronic church. The authors have revised the text to include even more first-hand information and a larger selection of photographs.

Science and technology had a significant influence on American culture and thought in the years immediately following World War II. The new wonders of science and the threat of the Soviet Union as a powerful new enemy made science fiction a popular genre in radio, television, and film. Mutant creatures spawned by radioactive energy and intergalactic dictators unleashing horrific weapons upon Earth were characteristic of science fiction at the time and served as warnings to the very real dangers posed by the atomic age. This work examines science and science fiction in American culture beginning in the year World War II ended and going to 1962, the year of John Glenns orbital flight and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The radio work of Arch Oboler and the significance of his "Rocket from Manhattan, " which aired only one month after the dropping of the first atomic bomb and asked serious questions about the use of atomic energy, are examined. Other topics are the conflict between the free world and the Communist world in the context of science fiction plot lines, the dangers of science as shown in films like Godzilla, Them!, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and radio and television programs, the flying saucer phenomenon and the treatment of such stories in the media (with special attention given to the 1956 documentary UFO), the changing and more positive depictions of scientists, television programs like Flash Gordon and Space Patrol, the shift in the balance of world power due to the successful launching of Sputnik I by the

This book provides a narrative history of the BBC Radio Variety Department exploring, along chronological lines, the workings of, tensions within and the impact of BBC policies on the programme-making department which generated the organisation's largest audiences. It provides an insight into key events, personalities, programmes, internal politics and trends in popular entertainment, censorship and anti-American policy as they individually or collectively affected the Department. Martin Dibbs examines how the Department's programmes became markers in the daily and weekly lives of millions of listeners, and helped shape the nation's listening habits when radio was the dominant source of domestic entertainment. The book explores events and topics which, while not directly forming part of the Variety Department's history, nevertheless intersected with or had an impact on it. Such topics include the BBC's attitude to jazz and rock and roll, the arrival of television with its impact on radio, the pirate radio stations, and the Popular Music and Gramophone Departments, both of whom worked closely with the Variety Department.

This book is a real find - for those who enjoy radio nostalgia but more importantly for scholars of broadcasting. From 1947 to 1950 while listening to such voices as Bob Hope, Red Skelton, Milton Berle, Jacl Benny, Fred Allen, and Jimmy Durante, and shows like Fiber McGee & Molly, Amos 'n' Andy, Blondie, and You Bet Your Life, the author was writing down jokes, gags, one-liners and quotations. In that short time he had filled 11 spiral notebooks. Fifty years later in a labor of love, the author painstakingly transferred those childhood notes into this invaluable - in fact, undoubtably unique - record of a boom time in American radio. This is an unexpected treasure for radio scholars, who have long lamented the lack of recordings for the majority of radio programming. Television researchers as well will benefit - here are root sources of television comedy. It is a revelation to find that what we are laughing at today often was first done on radio over 50 year ago. The author has also included a notes and comments section which includes background material on all the radio programs in this book.

In 1967, Jim Harmon published the first edition of The Great Radio Heroes to great acclaim. Thirty-three years later comes an illustrated, corrected, revised and greatly expanded new edition... Once there was a time--and it was not so long ago--when radio listening, especially to the dramas, was one of the most important events in many a young person's life. People developed a love affair with the radio, and though the old times are now gone forever, the love affair continues. The heroes and settings of radio drama spurred the imagination to supply its own and much better images than visual media provided. There were no padded shoulders on the Lone Ranger, Superman flew with no jiggly trick photography, and the Martians whom Orson Welles helped attack the Earth were more convincing than anything the movies can provide. For those who have been under the thrall of radio's alluring call, your new host Jim Harmon provides reminiscences of the heyday of radio programming, with insights on such radio dramas as I Love a Mystery, Gangbusters, The Shadow, Inner Sanctum, Batman and Robin, Superman, Tom Mix, The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet, Adventures by Morse and a couple of dozen more. Photographs, a bibliography, and an index are included to enhance the reader's journey into a past time when radio was the favorite pastime.

'Beautifully judged account of the Manchester scene . . . There is something of the fairy tale about Dave Haslam's sage joyful testament to the kind of life that nobody could ever plan, a happy aligning of a cultural moment and a young man who instinctively knew that it was his once upon a time' Victoria Segal, Sunday Times 'Witty, sometimes dark, revealing, insightful, everything one could hope for from one of those folk without whom independent music simply wouldn't exist' Classic Rock Sonic Youth Slept on My Floor is writer and DJ Dave Haslam's wonderfully evocative memoir. It is a masterful insider account of the Hacienda, the rise of Madchester and birth of the rave era, and how music has sound-tracked a life and a generation. In the late 1970s Dave Haslam was a teenage John Peel listener and Joy Division fan, his face pressed against a 'window', looking in at a world of music, books and ideas. Four decades later, he finds himself in the middle of that world, collaborating with New Order on a series of five shows in Manchester. Into the story of those intervening decades, Haslam weaves a definitive portrait of Manchester as a music city and the impact of a number of life-changing events, such as the nightmare of the Yorkshire Ripper to the shock of the Manchester Arena terror attack. The cast of Haslam's life reads like a who's who of '70s, '80s and '90s popular culture: Tony Wilson, Nile Rodgers, Terry Hall, Neneh Cherry, Tracey Thorn, John Lydon, Johnny Marr, Ian Brown, Laurent Garnier and David Byrne. From having Morrissey to tea and meeting writers such as Raymond Carver and Jonathan Franzen to discussing masturbation with Viv Albertine and ecstasy with Roisin Murphy, via having a gun pulled on him at the Hacienda and a drug dealer threatening to slit his throat, this is not your usual memoir.

Eastman has assembled this exemplary volume to spotlight media promotion and to examine current research on the promotion of television and radio programs. The studies included here explore various types of promotion and use widely differing methods and approaches, providing a comprehensive overview of promotion research activities. Chapters include extensive literature reviews, original research, and discussion of research questions for subsequent study.
"Research in Media Promotion" serves as a benchmark for the current state of promotion research and theory, and establishes the role of promotion as a primary factor affecting audience size. Appropriate for coursework and study in programming, marketing, research methods, management, and industry processes and practices, this volume offers agenda items for future study and is certain to stimulate new research ideas.

Includes interviews with such well known personalities as Walter Cronkite, Dick Clark, Steve Allen, Art Linkletter, Paul Harvey, Howard K. Smith, Ed McMahon, Bruce Morrow, as well as more than fifty other individuals who were or continue to be actively involved in radio.

Radio Drama brings together the practical skills needed for radio drams, such as directing, writing and sound design, with media history and communication theory.
Challenging the belief that sound drama is a 'blind medium', Radio Drama shows how experimentation in radio narrative has blurred the dividing line between fiction and reality in modern media. Using extracts from scripts and analysing radio broadcasts from America, Britain, Canada and Australia, the book explores the practicalities of producing drama for radio. Tim Crook illustrates how far radio drama has developed since the first 'audiophonic production' and evaluates the future of radio drama in the age of live phone-ins and immedate access to programmes on the Internet.

First published in 1991, this book presents a comprehensive annotated bibliography of radio broadcasting. Its eleven chapter-categories cover almost the entire range of radio broadcasting - with the exception of radio engineering due to its technical complexity although some of the historical volumes do encompass aspects, thus providing background material. Entries are primarily restricted to published books although a number of trade journals and periodicals are also included. Each entry includes full bibliographic information, including the ISBN or ISSN where available, and an annotation written by the author with the original text in hand.

During the Cold War, radio broadcasting played an important role in the ideological confrontation between East and West. As archival documents gathered in this volume reveal, radio broadcasting was among the most pressing concerns of contemporary information agencies. These broadcasts could penetrate the Iron Curtain and directly address the 'enemy'. Radio was equally important in keeping sustained levels of support among the home public and the public of friendly nations. In the early Cold War in particular, listeners in the West had to be persuaded of the need for higher defence spending levels and a policy of containment. Later, even if other media - and in particular television - had become more important, radio continued to be used widely. The chapters gathered here investigate both the institutional history of the radio broadcasting corporations in the East and in the West, and their relationship with other propaganda agencies of the time. They examine the 'off-air' politics of radio broadcasting, from the choice of theme to the selection of speakers, singers and music pieces. The key issue tackled by contributors is the problem of measuring the impact of, and qualifying the success of, information policies and propaganda programmes produced during the Cultural Cold War. This book was originally published as a special issue of Cold War History.

Radio still remains an important form of media, with millions listening to it daily. It has been reborn for the digital era, and is an area where there is great interest in its development, role and form. Attempting to fill the gap in research on British radio criticism, this volume explores the development and role of radio criticism in the discourse around radio in Britain from its birth in the 1920s up to present day. Using a historical approach to explore how, as radio emerged, the press provided coverage which helped shape and reflect radio's position in popular culture, Paul Rixon delivers an interesting and engaging exploration that provides a cultural perspective on radio, with a specific focus on newspaper criticism. Radio Critics and Popular Culture is an innovative and original addition to existing research and will be invaluable for those interested in the way that British radio has evolved.

Studs Terkel was an American icon who had no use for America's cult of celebrity. He was a leftist who valued human beings over political dogma. In scores of books and thousands of radio and television broadcasts, Studs paid attention - and respect - to "ordinary" human beings of all classes and colours, as they talked about their lives as workers, dreamers, survivors. Alan Wieder's Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, But Mostly Conversation is the first comprehensive book about this man. Drawing from over fifty interviews of people who knew and worked with Studs, Alan Wieder creates a multi-dimensional portrait of a run-of-the-mill guy from Chicago who, in public life, became an acclaimed author and raconteur, while managing, in his private life, to remain a mensch. We see Studs, the eminent oral historian, the inveterate and selfless supporter of radical causes, especially civil rights. We see the actor, the writer, the radio host, the jazz lover, whose early work in television earned him a notorious place on the McCarthy blacklist. We also see Studs the family man and devoted husband to his adored wife, Ida. Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, But Mostly Conversation allows us to realize the importance of reaching through our own daily realities - increasingly clogged with disembodied, impersonal interaction - to find value in actual face-time with real humans. Wieder's book also shows us why such contact might be crucial to those of us in movements rising up against global tyranny and injustice. The book is simply the best introduction available to this remarkable man. Reading it will lead people to Terkel's enormous body of work, with benefits they will cherish throughout their lives.

The story of British radio begins long before the birth of the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) in 1922. This book aims to tell this story through its component parts: the makers, the programs, and the policies that together shaped the development of a system of broadcasting, grounded initially in a public service ethic, and subsequently struggling toward an, at times, uneasy balance of public and commercial radio. The last ten years of UK radio history have contained more drama, change and development than in all its previous history. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of British Radio covers its history through a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 800 cross-referenced entries on issues, characters, movements and policies that have shaped radio in the United Kingdom. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about British Radio.

First published in 1991, this book presents a comprehensive annotated bibliography of radio broadcasting. Its eleven chapter-categories cover almost the entire range of radio broadcasting - with the exception of radio engineering due to its technical complexity although some of the historical volumes do encompass aspects, thus providing background material. Entries are primarily restricted to published books although a number of trade journals and periodicals are also included. Each entry includes full bibliographic information, including the ISBN or ISSN where available, and an annotation written by the author with the original text in hand.

This book, first published in 1968, describes the development of religion by radio, and its influences on people both inside and outside the Church. It tells of experiment and practice, of acceptance and rejection, of inspiration and comfort in peace and war, and assesses the great contribution made by religion to British broadcasting over the decades since the first religious broadcast, on Christmas Eve of 1922.

Images of the golden age of wireless and family life before the age of television have widespread currency. Their dominance raises fundamental questions about the extent to which people's memories of early radio and everyday pre-war life are shaped and mediated by these public histories. For geographical reasons radio has played an unusually important part in twentieth-century Australian life and culture. Australian radio must therefore stand as a major example in the study of the medium. This book, first published in 1988, examines the early history of Australian radio, looking at the beginnings of radio itself and at the ways in which cultural tasks were determined for it. This is a detailed analysis of radio discourse and the construction of audiences, drawing on a range of theoretical material to examine questions about the production and dynamics of popular culture, the relationship between politics and everyday life, and the changes brought about in women's lives.

This book, first published in 1974, is the story of BBC Audience Research, a behind-the-scenes activity that has always been the subject of some curiosity. It describes the early, tentative experiments, designed both to develop ways of applying the techniques of social research to broadcasting and to win the confidence of BBC staff. The way World War II, which deprived programme planners of many of their familiar landmarks, acted as a fillip to audience research, which emerged at the end of the war as an established and accepted adjunct to broadcasting, is described in detail.

This book, first published in 1990, offers an in-depth analysis of the 'fundamental beliefs' of radio. This refers to the common understanding of what the radio enterprise is - and should be - about: entertainment and information. A major thrust of this book is to arrive at a set of fundamental beliefs about the values and the realities of the radio business in regard to entertainment programming - a set of beliefs that may or may not be right, or forever, but that might at least provide a basis for developing programming strategies. Most other books on radio programming describe the formats and programming that already exist. This one starts with a clean sheet of paper and the question 'What do listeners really want from radio?'

Communications between amateur radio (AKA ham radio) operators and citizen band stations have been crowding the world's electromagnetic spectrum since its invention in the early 20th century. Millions of operators formed what could be almost be described as an early internet - projecting their voices, ideas, and humanity around the earth's surface using various techniques and frequencies to bounce their waves around the earth's surface, off of the ionosphere, and even the moon. Any communication network needs a way of identifying individuals. A QSL card is a written confirmation of prior communication between two amateur radio or citizens band stations-postcard sized and mailed between users. Do You Confirm Receipt of My Transmission is derived from the Q code. A Q code message can stand for a statement or a question (when the code is followed by a question mark). In this case, 'QSL?' (note the question mark) means "Do you confirm receipt of my transmission?" while 'QSL' (without a question mark) means "I confirm receipt of your transmission." Just like today's internet avatars, operators had their own style and often projected their personality using their QSL cards. Collecting cards was popular, and a source of pride to operators. Published by Brooklyn-based design imprint, Standards Manual, Do You Confirm Receipt of My Transmission is a visual history of these cards, spanning from approximately 1960-1990. Over 190 cards are included, front and back, with high resolution details. The collection forms a visual history of early global communication - something we now take for granted but was once a marvel. Today, there are over 3 million licensed radio operators worldwide.

During the Cold War, radio broadcasting played an important role in the ideological confrontation between East and West. As archival documents gathered in this volume reveal, radio broadcasting was among the most pressing concerns of contemporary information agencies. These broadcasts could penetrate the Iron Curtain and directly address the 'enemy'. Radio was equally important in keeping sustained levels of support among the home public and the public of friendly nations. In the early Cold War in particular, listeners in the West had to be persuaded of the need for higher defence spending levels and a policy of containment. Later, even if other media - and in particular television - had become more important, radio continued to be used widely. The chapters gathered here investigate both the institutional history of the radio broadcasting corporations in the East and in the West, and their relationship with other propaganda agencies of the time. They examine the 'off-air' politics of radio broadcasting, from the choice of theme to the selection of speakers, singers and music pieces. The key issue tackled by contributors is the problem of measuring the impact of, and qualifying the success of, information policies and propaganda programmes produced during the Cultural Cold War. This book was originally published as a special issue of Cold War History.

In the past few years, trust in traditional media has reached new lows. Many Americans disbelieve what they hear from the "mainstream media," and have turned to getting information from media echo chambers which are reflective of a single party or ideology. In this book, Paul Matzko reveals that this is not the first such moment in modern American history. The Radio Right tells the story of the 1960s far Right, who were frustrated by what they perceived to be liberal bias in the national media, particularly the media's sycophantic relationship with the John F. Kennedy administration. These people turned for news and commentary to a resurgent form of ultra-conservative mass media: radio. As networks shifted their resources to television, radio increasingly became the preserve of cash-strapped, independent station owners who were willing to air the hundreds of new right-wing programs that sprang up in the late 1950s and 1960s. By the early 1960s, millions of Americans listened each week to conservative broadcasters, the most prominent of which were clergy or lay broadcasters from across the religious spectrum, including Carl McIntire, Billy James Hargis, and Clarence Manion. Though divided by theology, these speakers were united by their distrust of political and theological liberalism and their antipathy towards JFK. The political influence of the new Radio Right quickly became apparent as the broadcasters attacked the Kennedy administration's policies and encouraged grassroots conservative activism on a massive scale. Matzko relates how, by 1963, Kennedy was so alarmed by the rise of the Radio Right that he ordered the Internal Revenue Service and Federal Communications Commission to target conservative broadcasters with tax audits and enhanced regulatory scrutiny via the Fairness Doctrine. Right-wing broadcasters lost hundreds of stations and millions of listeners. Not until the deregulation of the airwaves under the Carter and Reagan administrations would right-wing radio regain its former prominence. The Radio Right provides the essential pre-history for the last four decades of conservative activism, as well as the historical context for current issues of political bias and censorship in the media.

* Thoroughly revised fourth edition of the bible for anyone training to work in audio; * Deals with the rise of podcasts and the impact of digital technology; * Comprehensive and practical coverage of all aspects of audio work: announcing, presenting, producing, legal issues, marketing and the studio environment; * Author has extensive experience as an audio journalist in Australia and overseas, and is well-known as a consultant and educator.

A fascinating tour of baseball's greatest moments and iconic stadiums, told through the reminiscences of 50 play-by-play broadcasters. With careers spanning two to three times that of an average player, baseball's best broadcasters have no shortage of history to offer. They have witnessed opening days, no hitters, slugfests, and perfect games, all from arguably the best seats in the house. Broadcasters know their clubs, their stadiums, and their teams in a way that no one else can. In The Voices of Baseball: The Game's Greatest Broadcasters Reflect on America's Pastime, Updated Edition, Kirk McKnight provides an in-depth look at each of Major League Baseball's thirty ballparks from the perspectives of the game's longest-tenured storytellers. Fifty broadcasters reflect on their most iconic calls, fondest memories, what makes their ballparks unique, and more. This updated edition includes 14 additional broadcasters, two new stadiums, the latest World Series calls from the booth, and a special tribute to the recently-departed Vin Scully. With decades of broadcasting between them, their stories encapsulate some of Major League Baseball's biggest moments. Generations of baseball fans will all enjoy the historic and triumphant memories shared by some of the game's greatest broadcasters in The Voices of Baseball.