by Al Daniels
“Who listens to radio? Only 150 million people — that’s all.” Those are the words of radio jazz singer Sarah Vaughn. It is one of her crowning achievements. I was introduced to her with that flashy jingle. Radio has no limits now, like it did when it once had just AM. The World Wide Web is fantastic — we can access radio stations from all over the world with the touch of a button.
AM radio was everywhere in the middle of the 20th century, but it did not usually travel more than a few hundred miles. WABC-AM radio was popular in the greater New York City area. I grew up listening to the morning DJ, Herb Oscar Anderson, when I was in elementary school. He accompanied me for breakfast.
Dandy Dan Daniels was his competitor on WMCA on the lower part of the dial. High school saw the end of serious music with the demise of classical music’s dominance of the FM dial. The first rock station on FM radio was 98.7, WOR. ABC had to respond with a similar rock format. Metro Media continued the trend with emphasis on progressive rock. Jonathan Schwartz was a knowledgeable music authority of the time, commanding jazz on the WNEW-AM and rock on the FM side. Alison Steele was the sultry nightbird for NEW FM.
Rock diminished on the AM band as quickly as the FM band rocked. Jazz from WNEW-AM became extinct and WQXR held on for a while with classical music on AM. The AM band eventually shrank to news, sports, and a person with a telephone and an overabundance of hot air.
To appease an outcry over the loss of classical programming, they invented the educational portion of the FM airwaves. The outcry was answered by invention of community radio. Commercial support became limited to underwriting with no explicit commercials. There is a song by the Beach Boys called, “That’s Why God Made the Radio.” I believe it is a song that names the radio airwaves as a God-given right.
We have to protect and preserve radio for our offspring. Our broadcasting stations are being bought up by big business to advertise, and very rarely educate.
What is known as amateur radio helps us to understand the physical and ethereal aspects of the science. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) oversees the use and preservation of the airwaves. Wireless communication is everywhere. Amateur radio operators help in emergencies, and unknown to many people, also experiment with wireless communication for our future education, information, and entertainment.
Podcasts are a more recent invention and hold a key to the future. There is a plethora of podcasts to please anyone’s tastes. If we can look to our past, we can see that there once was dramatic arts on radio. There was theater everywhere. We now look back and call it OTR. OTR, standing for old-time radio, challenged our imagination to fill in the picture. Radio executives doomed the theater of the radio airwaves with the invention of television. Can we afford to cause the extinction of radio? What is happening to radio is happening all the time, in our community, profit over service. Without a working, caring society, we have nothing. To achieve a favorable end, it takes investment of not only wealth but thought and sincere effort. Please join me to build the future for generations to come. Let’s listen.