This is the second collection of scripts of the hugely popular Bickersons, a radio/TV series starring Don Ameche and Frances Langford. Includes never-before-published versions of their classic routines, plus original radio commercials, both radio pilots, Christmas episode for the unaired animation show, and more!

From Archie Andrews to Tom Mix, all radio characters and programs that ever stemmed from a comic book or comic strip in radio's golden age are collected here, for the first time, in an easy-to-read, A through Z book!

For two decades starting in 1955, millions of Americans spent their weekends listening to an extraordinary radio program--NBC's "Monitor."

Running continuously from Saturday morning through Sunday night, "Monitor" featured big-name hosts like Dave Garroway, Hugh Downs, Gene Rayburn, Ed McMahon, Henry Morgan, Barry Nelson, Joe Garagiola, Bill Cullen, Jim Lowe and Murray the K--all broadcasting from mammoth studios called "Radio Central."

"Monitor" spotlighted a galaxy of feature reporters such as Arlene Francis, Gene Shalit, Bob Considine and Mel Allen. Comedy came from Bob and Ray, Nichols and May and Ernie Kovacs--and "Miss Monitor" gave her unforgettable weather forecasts.

This is the vastly expanded, revised edition of Dennis Hart's inside look at "Monitor." Included are doz

The popularity of radio for purposes of instruction and entertainment is a remarkable phenomenon, the full significance of which we have hardly yet grasped. Spiritual Radio is vindicating the work of the great mystics of Christian history; it is demonstrating that the "Interior Life" is not limited to the seclusion of the cloister, but produces a robust type of Christian manhood and womanhood that makes for leadership and achievement in the marvelous age in which our lot is cast.

As National Public Radio's much loved and respected senior foreign correspondent Anne Garrels has covered conflicts in Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. In "Naked in Baghdad" she reveals how as one of only sixteen non-embedded journalists who stayed in the now legendary Palestine Hotel throughout the American invasion she managed to deliver the most immediate, insightful and independent reports with unparalleled vividness and immediacy.
Her evolving relationship with her Iraqi driver/minder Amer, and the wonderful e-mail bulletins sent to friends by her husband, Vint Lawrence, counterpoint the daily events of her life in Baghdad, and result in a deeply moving, and intimate portrait by one of bravest and most enlightening news reporters.

" Among America's most unusual and successful weapons during the Cold War were Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. RFE-RL had its origins in a post-war America brimming with confidence and secure in its power. Unlike the Voice of America, which conveyed a distinctly American perspective on global events, RFE-RL served as surrogate home radio services and a vital alternative to the controlled, party-dominated domestic press in Eastern Europe. Over twenty stations featured programming tailored to individual countries. They reached millions of listeners ranging from industrial workers to dissident leaders such as Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel. Broadcasting Freedom draws on rare archival material and offers a penetrating insider history of the radios that helped change the face of Europe. Arch Puddington reveals new information about the connections between RFE-RL and the CIA, which provided covert funding for the stations during the critical start-up years in the early 1950s. He relates in detail the efforts of Soviet and Eastern Bloc officials to thwart the stations; their tactics ranged from jamming attempts, assassinations of radio journalists, the infiltration of spies onto the radios' staffs, and the bombing of the radios' headquarters. Puddington addresses the controversies that engulfed the stations throughout the Cold War, most notably RFE broadcasts during the Hungarian Revolution that were described as inflammatory and irresponsible. He shows how RFE prevented the Communist authorities from establishing a monopoly on the dissemination of information in Poland and describes the crucial roles played by the stations as the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union broke apart. Broadcasting Freedom is also a portrait of the Cold War in America. Puddington offers insights into the strategic thinking of the RFE-RL leadership and those in the highest circles of American government, including CIA directors, secretaries of state, and even presidents.

A pioneering analysis of radio as both a cultural and material production, Communities of the Air explores radio's powerful role in shaping Anglo-American culture and society since the early twentieth century. Scholars and radio writers, producers, and critics look at the many ways radio generates multiple communities over the air-from elite to popular, dominant to resistant, canonical to transgressive. The contributors approach radio not only in its own right, but also as a set of practices-both technological and social-illuminating broader issues such as race relations, gender politics, and the construction of regional and national identities. Drawing on the perspectives of literary and cultural studies, science studies and feminist theory, radio history, and the new field of radio studies, these essays consider the development of radio as technology: how it was modeled on the telephone, early conflicts between for-profit and public uses of radio, and amateur radio (HAMS), local programming, and low-power radio. Some pieces discuss how radio gives voice to different cultural groups, focusing on the BBC and poetry programming in the West Indies, black radio, the history of alternative radio since the 1970s, and science and contemporary arts programming. Others look at radio's influence on gender (and gender's influence on radio) through examinations of Queen Elizabeth's broadcasts, Gracie Allen's comedy, and programming geared toward women. Together the contributors demonstrate how attention to the variety of ways radio is used and understood reveals the dynamic emergence and transformation of communities within the larger society. Contributors. Laurence A. Breiner, Bruce B. Campbell, Mary Desjardins, Lauren M. E. Goodlad, Nina Hunteman, Leah Lowe, Adrienne Munich, Kathleen Newman, Martin Spinelli, Susan Merrill Squier, Donald Ulin, Mark Williams, Steve Wurzler

"How to DJ" is the insider's guide to becoming a professional DJ. Written by two industry insiders who DJ and produce hit records throughout the world, this is the concise, how-to sourcebook that comes straight from real DJs and musicians. They explain and demonstrate everything you need to know---from the basics of what DJs do and how they got their careers off of the ground to the worldwide phenomenon of DJ/producers who work with the biggest names in the business and make the music in the charts today.
-- top advice on how to DJ---from selecting what to spin to getting gigs to keeping your audience dancing
-- technology made easy---what you need and how to set it up
-- how the DJ and music business works and how to rise to the top
-- how to make hit records at home
-- interviews and tips from celebrity DJs including Tall Paul, Boy George, Tim Westwood, Andy Cato, Mr. C, Andy Wilson, BT, Jeremy Healy, Allister Whitehead, and Sasha.

"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.

"It was all so honest, before the end of our collective innocence. Top Forty jocks screamed and yelled and sounded mightier than God on millions of transistor radios. But on FM radio it was all spun out for only you. On a golden web by a master weaver driven by fifty thousand magical watts of crystal clear power . . . before the days of trashy, hedonistic dumbspeak and disposable three-minute ditties . . . in the days where rock lived at many addresses in many cities."
–from FM

As a young man, Richard Neer dreamed of landing a job at WNEW in New York–one of the revolutionary FM stations across the country that were changing the face of radio by rejecting strict formatting and letting disc jockeys play whatever they wanted. He felt that when he got there, he’d have made the big time. Little did he know he’d have shaped rock history as well.

FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio chronicles the birth, growth, and death of free-form rock-and-roll radio through the stories of the movement’s flagship stations. In the late sixties and early seventies–at stations like KSAN in San Francisco, WBCN in Boston, WMMR in Philadelphia, KMET in Los Angeles, WNEW, and others–disc jockeys became the gatekeepers, critics, and gurus of new music. Jocks like Scott Muni, Vin Scelsa, Jonathan Schwartz, and Neer developed loyal followings and had incredible influence on their listeners and on the early careers of artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Genesis, the Cars, and many others.

Full of fascinating firsthand stories, FM documents the commodification of an iconoclastic phenomenon, revealing how counterculture was coopted and consumed by the mainstream. Richard Neer was an eyewitness to, and participant in, this history. FM is the tale of his exhilarating ride.


From the Hardcover edition.

This book, which originally appeared as a special issue of TDR/The Drama Review, explores the myriad aesthetic, cultural, and experimental possibilities of radiophony and sound art. Art making and criticism have focused mainly on the visual media. This book, which originally appeared as a special issue of TDR/The Drama Review, explores the myriad aesthetic, cultural, and experimental possibilities of radiophony and sound art. Taking the approach that there is no single entity that constitutes "radio," but rather a multitude of radios, the essays explore various aspects of its apparatus, practice, forms, and utopias. The approaches include historical, political, popular cultural, archeological, semiotic, and feminist. Topics include the formal properties of radiophony, the disembodiment of the radiophonic voice, aesthetic implications of psychopathology, gender differences in broadcast musical voices and in narrative radio, erotic fantasy, and radio as an electronic memento mori. The book includes a new piece by Allen Weiss on the origins of sound recording. Contributors John Corbett, Tony Dove, Rene Farabet, Richard Foreman, Rev. Dwight Frizzell, Mary Louise Hill, G. X. Jupitter-Larsen, Douglas Kahn, Terri Kapsalis, Alexandra L. M. Keller, Lou Mallozzi, Jay Mandeville, Christof Migone, Joe Milutis, Kaye Mortley, Mark S. Roberts, Susan Stone, Allen S. Weiss, Gregory Whitehead, David Williams, Ellen Zweig

The classic serial, invented by BBC Radio Drama sixty years ago, survived and adapted itself to television, the arrival of colour and the global market in what has become a flood of classics with all channels competing for ratings and overseas sales. This richly detailed book traces these developments and analyses the genre's response to social, economic, technical and cultural changes, which have re-shaped it into the form we recognise today. The book contains considerable interview material with performers and media professionals.

Was the first radio news network for blacks a boon--or a bust? Author Sanders was there from the beginning and stayed on the air for over 20 years. Here he recounts the trials and tribulations of launching--and sustaining--the pride of a pioneering network.

In the late 1920s radio exploded almost overnight into being America's dominant entertainment, just as television would do twenty-five years later. Gerald Nachman, himself a product of the radio years, takes us back to the heyday of radio, bringing to life the great performers and shows, as well as the not-so-great and not-great-at-all. Nachman analyzes the many genres that radio exploited or invented, from the soap opera to the sitcom to the quiz show, zooming in to study closely key performers like Jack Benny, Bob Hope, and Fred Allen. Raised on Radio is a generous, instructive, and sinfully readable salute to an extraordinary American phenomenon.

There are approximately 502 million radios in America. For this savvy, far-reaching diary, celebrated journalist and author Vowell turned hers on and listened--closely, critically, creatively--for an entire year.
As a series of impressions and reflections regarding contemporary American culture, and as an extended meditation on both our media and our society, this keenly focused book is as insightful as it is refreshing.
Throughout "Radio On," "Vowell's touch is about as delicate as Teddy Kennedy's after a pitcher of martinis" (Richard Roeper, "Chicago Sun-Times").

With this invaluable resource, Stern's 16 million weekly listeners can keep a wealth of information stored at their fingertips--from Howard's middle name (Alan) and favorite food (Chinese) to his least successful school subject (chemistry). It's everything a fan needs to know!

The alienation of the self, the annihilation of the body, the fracturing, dispersal, and reconstruction of the disembodied voice: the themes of modernism, even of modern consciousness, occur as a matter of course in the phantasmic realm of radio. In this original work of cultural criticism, Allen S. Weiss explores the meaning of radio to the modern imagination. Weaving together cultural and technological history, aesthetic analysis, and epistemological reflection, his investigation reveals how radiophony transforms expression and, in doing so, calls into question assumptions about language and being, body and voice. Phantasmic Radio presents a new perspective on the avant-garde radio experiments of Antonin Artaud and John Cage, and brings to light fascinating, lesser-known work by, among others, Valere Novarina, Gregory Whitehead, and Christof Migone. Weiss shows how Artaud's "body without organs" establishes the closure of the flesh after the death of God; how Cage's "imaginary landscapes" proffer the indissociability of techne and psyche; how Novarina reinvents the body through the word in his "theater of the ears." Going beyond the art historical context of these experiments, Weiss describes how, with their emphasis on montage and networks of transmission, they marked out the coordinates of modernism and prefigured what we now recognize as the postmodern.

The biography of the radio comic Fred Allen is a vision of comedy in the 20th century and of an individual remembered for his incisive wit and talent. Starting in vaudeville as the "World's Worst Juggler," graduating to the Broadway stage of variety shows and torch singers, Fred Allen became an American icon in the 1930s and 1940s. Drawing from Allen's scripts, journals, letters and books, Robert Taylor has recreated that humour. Robert Taylor is the author of "Saranac" and is art critic and senior book critic for the "Boston Globe".