Nicole: The idea that somebody can hear themselves on the radio by calling in and talking to the host - it sounds so old school at this point, but it really was a revolution…. In radio’s earlier days, it was awkward and clunky to get a listener on the air, with hosts either holding the phone up to the mic or… holding it to their ear and saying “mhmm mhmm,” before reiterating to listeners what the caller said.īut changes in broadcast regulations and improved telephone technology made it easier for listeners to get on the air. And the special sauce was the listeners themselves.īut among the most popular of talk is the invitation to the audience to talk back… "Hello, you're on the air" is as familiar a phrase on radio these days as the stations call letters. Advice to the lovelorn, to the investor, to the shopper… …And that actually leads to some languishing on the AM dial and for AM stations…Īt first low-quality, old-timey-sounding AM struggled to find its competitive advantage. Nicole: As the FM dial opens up, radio stations that play music are like we were, we're goin' over there, we're going to be an FM station now And compared to AM’s muck, it was freshly shined glass. But with FM, or “frequency modulation,” sound was encoded into radio signals differently. With AM, or “amplitude modulation” radio, there was always sort of an ambient hum. The year this Steely Dan song came out, 1978, the FM band beat AM in listeners for the first time.ġ960s RCA RADIO INFOMERCIAL: (0:14): The difference in reception will leap to the ear… “No static at all.” That was the promise of FM radio. Steely Dan, “FM”: // No static at all // No static, no static at all // FM (No static at all) But also because of a great technological leap. In part because of the FCC’s “public interest moment,” which encouraged stations to better reflect what their audience wanted to hear. In the 1970s, talk and public affairs shows exploded. More popular than any of the forms and formats stations put together to get the ratings to make the money. Morley Safer: Talk is the most popular kind of radio today, at least on AM… More popular than country and western and rock and roll. Sawyer: I’m Diane Sawyer… Tonight on 60 Minutes… how the last four decades saw the undoing of that arrangement. But the airwaves still hosted a diversity of voices and there were policies in place to keep it that way.
Call rush limbaugh radio series#
I’m Katie Thornton and this is the Divided Dial - a five-part podcast series from On the Media about how one side of the political spectrum came to dominate talk radio - and how one company is using the airwaves to launch a right wing media empire.īy the early ‘80s, the right had staked out their place in the media ecosystem - despite repeated claims of censorship and liberal bias. His murder a milestone on the road to an ever more violent radical right. And we're, I'm still trying to piece information together.the best, um, investigative efforts through the DP has indicated that someone… fired upon Alan Berg when he was exiting his vehicle in front of his home…Īlan Berg was shot and killed by a white supremacist. KOA Announcer Ken Hamblin: 10:39 KOA time. Goodbye.īehind the mic, his style was caustic, as he faced off with the bigots who often called in to his show.ĭavid Lane: I think the Jews are still firmly in control of the soviet union, I think they’re responsible for the murder of 50 million white Christians.Īlan Berg: I think you’re sick, I think you’re pathetic, I think your ability to reason … any logic is…ĭavid Lane: Why don’t you put a Nazi on your program and then you’ll have somebody that can -Īlan Berg: You are nazi by your very own admission, thanks so much, and that’s right you With his gray, shaggy mop top, scruffy beard and reading glasses perched on the end of his nose, Berg looked more like a high school geography teacher than a shock jock.Īlan Berg: (10:04) My dear, anybody who’s programmed like you is persay a racist.Ĭaller: …(indecipherable) I am good Christian mother…Īlan Berg: Honey, you are committable. A leading liberal voice on the air was Alan Berg.īerg: Alan Berg on KOA. Voices from across the political and cultural spectrum jostled for airtime. In the early 1980s the radio dial was a bustling town square.
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