[NJARC] What is a "Radio?"

[David R Sica]

Alex,
I have a good friend, who has attended some of our NJARC events , whose
background is as a DJ in the radio broadcasting industry. Now I'll admit
once again that SAYING something is altogether different than actually
DOING it, so I am hopeful yet skeptical about any grand plans. You raise
a lot of good questions, but my friend feels strongly that with a
combination of prerecorded and remote live hookups from people such as
himself who have a fondness for the programming side of the same earlier
eras in radio that our people do for the hardware side, that this might
very well be a viable proposition. So there's an opinion from the other
side of the sandbox!

--Dave


On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 10:22:49 -0500 amagoun <amagoun at davidsarnoff.org>
writes:
> Visit our web site - See http://www.njarc.org
> _______________________________________________
> Since the NJARC seems to represent largely radio preservationists
> focusing on "hardware," to pursue this idea you will need the radio
> preservationists of "software," ie broadcast content from the 30s 
> to
> the... well, it's hard to know where contemporary stations draw the
> line.  But the content of the NJARC station ought to be more than
> playing the same top 40 you can hear on a variety of commercial AM,
> satellite, and internet stations.  It ought to recreate the delivery 
> of
> those songs, the tube or transistor systems of transmission and
> reception, and the commercial content that framed them back in the 
> day.
> To pull this off, I'm thinking we should discuss this with people 
> who
> run the NJ Radio Museum in Dover, www.njrm.org/, who seem to be or 
> know
> a number of ex-DJs, and people like Dave Zwengler of North 
> Brunswick,
> who's an effective mimic of men from the Golden Age of Radio.
> 
> Whether they could incorporate the variety of ads as well as patter 
> that
> listeners would remember from the past is a good question, as is
> obtaining rights, which probably extend beyond BMI and ASCAP.  But 
> that
> would be the point of a non-profit station dedicated to preservation 
> of
> a dead form.  Could a group assemble enough live and prerecorded or
> streamed material from DJs, those records incorporating the songs 
> and
> ads of the 1960s, and the explosion of CDs containing the Golden Age 
> to
> fit the on-air requirements of the FCC?  Do it be done while 
> filtering,
> for the 30s through the 50s, the less-fondly remembered references?  
> I'm
> thinking not only of Amos 'n' Andy, but the variety of slurs 
> directed at
> Asians and Hispanics, as well as females, that make finding a 
> script
> from that era worth reviving for radio theatre so difficult.  Lest 
> one
> of our many white males make a comment about political correctness, 
> this
> is little different from the reason no one wears blackface anymore; 
> and
> you try explaining the historical nature of such programming to the
> members of those groups who tune in.
> 
> So before going further, the discussion might do some calculations 
> about
> broadcast time required at different power and regulation levels, 
> and
> how much of that could be done with canned as opposed to live 
> material,
> week in, week out.
> 
> Best,
> Alex
> 
> ps. Incidentally, visitors to the blog below will find an 
> illustrated
> review of sorts of the War of the Worlds broadcast last October.
> --
> Alexander B. Magoun, Ph.D.
> Executive Director
> David Sarnoff Library
> 201 Washington Road, CN 5300
> Princeton, NJ 08543-5300
> 
> 609-734-2636
> amagoun at davidsarnoff.org
> (f) 609-734-2339
> www.davidsarnoff.org
> www.davidsarnoff.blogspot.com
> 
> 
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