Rebecca Front presents this two-part look back at Victoria Wood's stand-up and songs using her own archives and tapes - including never-before-heard material Victoria Wood was a comedian, actress and all-round national treasure. She wrote and starred in countless sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over four decades, winning numerous awards, and her work remains timeless to this day. With her perceptive observational humour, she made the everyday and mundane hilarious - but how did she do it? In this BBC Radio 4 documentary, Rebecca Front uses Victoria Wood's personal rehearsal recordings, rare live performances and behind-the-scenes footage to reveal some of her comedy tricks and techniques. We hear about her instinctive sense of rhythm, amazing rhyming ability and unerring knack for finding the perfect word to make a sentence sing, and learn how she honed her unique talent to become one of Britain's favourite funny women. With unprecedented access to Victoria's own boxes of battered cassette tapes, this programme is a shameless chance to hear some wonderful stand-up comedy, characters and songs, mixed with a look back at what made her so funny and so universally loved. Executive Producer: Geoff Posner Produced by David Tyler A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.

Born out of interviews with the producers of some of the most popular and culturally significant podcasts to date (Welcome to Night Vale, Radiolab, Serial, The Black Tapes, We're Alive, The Heart, The Truth, Lore, Love + Radio, My Dad Wrote a Porno, and others) as well as interviews with executives at some of the most important podcasting institutions and entities (the BBC, Radiotopia, Gimlet Media, Audible.com, Edison Research, Libsyn and others), Podcasting documents a moment of revolutionary change in audio media. The fall of 2014 saw a new iOS from Apple with the first built-in "Podcasts" app, the runaway success of Serial, and podcasting moving out of its geeky ghetto into the cultural mainstream. The creative and cultural dynamism of this moment, which reverberates to this day, is the focus of Podcasting. Using case studies, close analytical listening, quantitative and qualitative analysis, production analysis, as well as audience research, it suggests what podcasting has to contribute to a host of larger media-and-society debates in such fields as: fandom, social media and audience construction; new media and journalistic ethics; intimacy, empathy and media relationships; cultural commitments to narrative and storytelling; the future of new media drama; youth media and the charge of narcissism; and more. Beyond describing what is unique about podcasting among other audio media, this book offers an entry into the new and evolving field of podcasting studies.

The rhythmic lullaby of 'North Utsire, South Utsire' has been lulling the nation's insomniacs to sleep for over 90 years. It has inspired songs, poetry and imaginations across the globe - as well as providing a very real service for the nation's seafarers who might fall prey to storms and gales. In 1995, a plan to move the late-night broadcast by just 12 minutes caused a national outcry and was ultimately scrapped. Published with Radio 4 and the Met Office, The Shipping Forecast is the official miscellany for seafarers and armchair travellers alike. From the places themselves - how they got their names, what's happened there through the ages - to the poems and parodies that it's inspired, this is a beautifully evocative tribute to one of Britain's - and Radio 4's - best-loved broadcasts.

One of the first books to examine the status of broadcasting on its one hundredth anniversary, Radio's Second Century investigates both vanguard and perennial topics relevant to radio's past, present, and future. As the radio industry enters its second century of existence, it continues to be a dominant mass medium with almost total listenership saturation despite rapid technological advancements that provide alternatives for consumers. Lasting influences such as on-air personalities, audience behavior, fan relationships, and localism are analyzed as well as contemporary issues including social and digital media. Other essays examine the regulatory concerns that continue to exist for public radio, commercial radio, and community radio, and discuss the hindrances and challenges posed by government regulation with an emphasis on both American and international perspectives. Radio's impact on cultural hegemony through creative programming content in the areas of religion, ethnic inclusivity, and gender parity is also explored. Taken together, this volume compromises a meaningful insight into the broadcast industry's continuing power to inform and entertain listeners around the world via its oldest mass medium--radio.

For generations, fans and critics have characterized classic American radio drama as a "theater of the mind". This book examines that characterization by recasting the radio play as an aesthetic object within its unique historical context. In "Theater of the Mind", Neil Verma applies an array of critical methods to more than six thousand recordings to produce a vivid new account of radio drama from the Depression to the Cold War. In this sweeping exploration of dramatic conventions, Verma investigates legendary dramas by the likes of Norman Corwin, Lucille Fletcher, and Wyllis Cooper on key programs ranging from The Columbia Workshop, The Mercury Theatre on the Air, and Cavalcade of America to Lights Out!, Suspense, and Dragnet to reveal how these programs promoted and evolved a series of models of the imagination. With close readings of individual sound effects and charts of broad trends among formats, Verma not only gives us a new account of the most flourishing form of genre fiction in the mid-twentieth century but also presents a powerful case for the central place of the aesthetics of sound in the history of modern experience.

When Breeze FM Radio, in the provincial Zambian town of Chipata, hired an elderly retired school teacher in 2003, no one anticipated the skyrocketing success that would follow. A self-styled grandfather on air, Gogo Breeze seeks intimacy over the airwaves and dispenses advice on a wide variety of grievances and transgressions. Multiple voices are broadcast and juxtaposed through call-ins and dialogue, but free speech finds its ally in the radio elder who, by allowing people to be heard and supporting their claims, reminds authorities of their obligations toward the disaffected. Harri Englund provides a masterfully detailed study of this popular radio personality that addresses broad questions of free speech in Zambia and beyond. By drawing on ethnographic insights into political communication, Englund presents multivocal morality as an alternative to dominant Euro-American perspectives, displacing the simplistic notion of voice as individual personal property an idea common in both policy and activist rhetoric. Instead, Englund focuses on the creativity and polyphony of Zambian radio while raising important questions about hierarchy, elderhood, and ethics in the public sphere. A lively, engaging portrait of an extraordinary personality, Gogo Breeze will interest Africanists, scholars of radio and mass media, and anyone interested in the history and future of free speech.

Focuses on the aural elements which combine with moving images. The New Soundtrack is fully peer-reviewed and includes contributions from recognised practitioners in the field, including composers, sound designers and directors, giving voice to the development of professional practice, alongside academic contributions. Key Features Brings together leading edge academic and professional perspectives on the complex relationship between sound and moving images. Covers a wide range of topics, including filmmaking, production, documentaries and macro-sounds. Provides a new platform for discourse on how aural elements combine with moving images.

Despite the growth of digital media, traditional FM radio airplay still remains the essential way for musicians to achieve commercial success. "Climbing the Charts" examines how songs rise, or fail to rise, up the radio airplay charts. Looking at the relationships between record labels, tastemakers, and the public, Gabriel Rossman develops a clear picture of the roles of key players and the gatekeeping mechanisms in the commercial music industry. Along the way, he explores its massive inequalities, debunks many popular misconceptions about radio stations' abilities to dictate hits, and shows how a song diffuses throughout the nation to become a massive success.

Contrary to the common belief that Clear Channel sees every sparrow that falls, Rossman demonstrates that corporate radio chains neither micromanage the routine decision of when to start playing a new single nor make top-down decisions to blacklist such politically inconvenient artists as the Dixie Chicks. Neither do stations imitate either ordinary peers or the so-called kingmaker radio stations who are wrongly believed to be able to make or break a single. Instead, Rossman shows that hits spread rapidly across radio because they clearly conform to an identifiable style or genre. Radio stations respond to these songs, and major labels put their money behind them through extensive marketing and promotion efforts, including the illegal yet time-honored practice of payoffs known within the industry as payola.

"Climbing the Charts" provides a fresh take on the music industry and a model for understanding the diffusion of innovation.

For more than four decades Jim Maxwell has called the cricket for the ABC. Since 1973 he has covered over 250 Test matches, including six tours to the West Indies, seven to the subcontinent, over fifty Ashes Tests and five World Cups. His distinctive voice, dryly understated humour and immense knowledge of the game have been part of the fabric of Australian cricket for forty years. In his long-awaited autobiography he reflects on his life and career in a book that is fascinating, warm, nostalgic and uniquely informed about the game he loves and has dedicated his career to.

From Archibald MacLeish to David Sedaris, radio storytelling has long borrowed from the world of literature, yet the narrative radio work of well-known writers and others is a story that has not been told before. And when the literary aspects of specific programs such as The War of the Worlds or Sorry, Wrong Number were considered, scrutiny was superficial. In Lost Sound, Jeff Porter examines the vital interplay between acoustic techniques and modernist practices in the growth of radio. Concentrating on the 1930s through the 1970s, but also speaking to the rising popularity of today's narrative broadcasts such as This American Life,Radiolab, Serial, and The Organicist, Porter's close readings of key radio programs show how writers adapted literary techniques to an acoustic medium with great effect. Addressing avant-garde sound poetry and experimental literature on the air, alongside industry policy and network economics, Porter identifies the ways radio challenged the conventional distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow cultural content to produce a dynamic popular culture.

In Writing Music for Commercials: Television, Radio, and New Media, professor, composer, arranger, and producer Michael Zager describes the process of composing and arranging music specifically for commercials across the growing variety of media formats. Writing music for commercials requires composers not only learn the craft of writing short-form compositions that can stand on their own, but also understand the advertising business. In this third edition of his original Writing Music for Television and Radio Commericals, Zager walks starting composers through the business and art of writing music that aims for a product's target audience and, when done well, hits its mark. Chapter by chapter, Zager covers a broad array of topics: how to approach and analyze commercials from a specifically musical perspective, the range of compositional techniques for underscoring and composing jingles, the standard expectations and techniques for arranging and orchestration, and finally the composing of music for radio commercials, corporate videos, infomercials, theatrical trailers, video games, Internet commercials, websites, and web series (webisodes). This third edition has been updated to include more in-depth analysis of the changing landscape of music writing for modern media, with critical information on composing not only for the Web but for mobile applications, from video-driven advertising in online newspapers to electronic greeting cards. Zager also includes new interviews with industry professionals, updated business information, the latest sound design concepts, and much more. Writing Music for Commercials: Television, Radio, and New Media features: *Easy-to-read chapters for beginning and intermediate music composition students *Over a hundred graphics and musical examples *Interviews with industry professionals *An assortment of assignments to train and test readers, preparing them for the world of writing music for various media *Online audio samples that illustrate the book's principles Writing Music for Commercials is designed not only for composers but for students and professionals at every level.

X Games skateboarder, pro mixed martial arts fighter, and outspoken SiriusXM satellite radio host Jason Ellis shares his jaw-dropping and inspirational life story, from the depths of addiction to the glory of victory to the joys and ordeals of fatherhood. Fans of The Jason Ellis Show and the MMA-meets-music festival "Ellismania" know Ellis as a fearless daredevil-and as the new voice of action sports in America. Now, fans can learn how he got to be the man he is: the struggles, the setbacks, and the fight he put up to make it through to something better. Fans of Griffin Forrest's Got Fight and Tony Hawk's Hawk won't want to miss this unbelievable tell-all from a larger-than-life icon, and a fighter through and through.

A collection of Sherlock Holmes radio scripts with detailed notes on Canonical references, rewrites, influences and the challenges of adapting Conan Doyles original tales for a 21st Century audience.

This unique anthology assembles primary documents chronicling the development of the phonograph, film sound, and the radio. These three sound technologies shaped Americans' relation to music from the late nineteenth century until the end of the Second World War, by which time the technologies were thoroughly integrated into everyday life. There are more than 120 selections between the collection's first piece, an article on the phonograph written by Thomas Edison in 1878, and its last, a column advising listeners "desirous of gaining more from music as presented by the radio." Among the selections are articles from popular and trade publications, advertisements, fan letters, corporate records, fiction, and sheet music. Taken together, the selections capture how the new sound technologies were shaped by developments such as urbanization, the increasing value placed on leisure time, and the rise of the advertising industry. Most importantly, they depict the ways that the new sound technologies were received by real people in particular places and moments in time.