Radio remains an often-used, popular media, but, as with other media, it is continually in transition. The golden age of radio occurred between 1935 and 1955, only to be eclipsed by the rise of television in the 1950s. During World War II, the live broadcasts of war news by Edward R. Murrow and others from London established radio as an important news sources. By 1946, 63% of the American people regarded radio as their primary source of news. This led to the marked growth in radio stations during the late 1940s and 1950s, many of them locally owned stations, with strong local advertising revenues. By 1950, 94% of all households had a radio.

Golden Age of Radio: 1935–50

A major event in the evolution of radio occurred in the late 1960s and 1970s with the rise of the FM disc jockey who started to play alternative, counter culture rock/soul music not previously broadcast on commercial AM stations. This led to the rise of the FM station as a major source of rock music, creating a whole new listening audience. In some cases, these DJs also promoted alternative political perspectives.

For a summary of a PBS program on these DJs, see “Rock Jocks: The FM Revolution.”

Then, in the 1980s, talk-radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh began to promote a more conservative political perspective through their nationally syndicated talk shows, shows that were appealing to the “angry white male.”

During the 1990s, radio stations began to define themselves more in terms of specific targeted or niche markets in terms of the types of music, topics, or issues preferred by different audiences related to age, religious affiliation, gender, class, and race. See Radio Guide U.S.A. for a description of the different radio formats listed below:

Full Service
Adult Contemporary
Oldies
Urban Contemporary
New Adult Contemporary/Smooth Jazz
Country
Talk, Hot/Talk, Sports/Talk and News/Talk
Financial
College
Public Radio
Adult Standards
Adult StandardsBig Band
Top 40/CHR
Rock/Progresive/Alternative
Classical
Soft Hits/Easy Listening
Jazz
Gospel Religious
Variety
Children’s Radio
Spanish
Ethnic

The latest Arbiton analysis of audience use of these different formats of the 8,686 FM stations, and 4,999 AM stations as of Spring 2002, found that adolescents are most likely to listen to contemporary hit music stations — about 1/4th of all listeners of these stations are adolescents. Adolescents also listen to “rock,” “urban” and “alternative” stations. In contrast, 55% of listeners of “classical” stations are over age 55 and 53.6% of listeners of news/talk stations are over 55. The highest number of stations are “country,” with 2,170 stations, geared primarily for adults ages 35–44; followed by news/talk stations with 1, 999 stations, and then 1, 843 “religious”stations, whose listeners consist of 63% females, 1/4th of whom are ages 35-44.

Adolescent females, ages 12–17, listen 15 hours a week, while, males, ages 12–17, listen 12 hours a week. Female adults, ages 25–34, listen 20 hours a week, while male adults, ages 25–34, listen 22 hours a week.

The time of the day is also a key factor. Listening peaks in the early morning commuting hours of 6–10, and then declines during the day. During that time period, 40.5% of listening occurs at home; 34.4%, in the car; 23%, at work; and 1.2, other sites.

You could ask students to listen to different stations and attempt to identify the target audiences, the types of programs geared for those audiences, and the types of products advertised on those stations. They could also contrast the types of programming on public radio with commercial radio, as well as FM versus AM stations. And, they could analyze the “shock jock” radio personalities on stations they listen to, for example, Howard Stern, examining their uses of discourses of racism and sexism. They could then conduct surveys’ of their peers and/or family’s listening, and compare the findings with those in the Arbitron report.

Students could also study the evolution of radio as related to music production and promotion, as well as those characteristics that contribute to quality radio production as reflected in National Public Radio or Pacifica Radio programs.

For example, one strength of radio as a journalistic tool is that people can readily record interviews with others at a relatively low cost without the concern of having to convey visual images of these people. In comparing NPR coverage of a news item, with a commercial news coverage of the same item, students may note that the NRP coverage allows for more extensive analysis with interview clips from a range of different people, as well as more context than is the case with television news, which is burdened with the need to highlight the visual aspects of a story. In the television news module, your final task is to count the number of seconds per story in a local news broadcast. Students could compare the length of time devoted to stories in a typical NPR story on Morning Edition or All Things Considered with the time devoted to stories on a television news broadcast, as well as reflect on how much and what kinds of understanding they acquired with these different broadcasts.

Students could also write news in a format consistent with a radio news broadcast and share that news with their peers:
The New York Times Daily Lesson Plan: Writing News for Radio

For further background on writing for radio:
Newscript.com

Students could also study the genre of the “radio diary” in which people record their experiences about a particular experience, a genre students could also employ. (See Radio Diaries: activities for constructing radio diaries.)

One key shift in radio involves the increase in Internet Web radio stations, either in the form of radio stations that broadcast over the Web:

WebRadio.com
Live365.com

or stations that are only accessed on the Web:

Spinner.com

However, many of these Web stations may be going off the air because the music industry wants to charge them royalities for their playlists. Because many are small, independent operations, they cannot afford to pay these royalities.

Another recent development in the late 1990s is the increased use of satellite radio. As illustrated below, XM Satellite Radio can broadcast up to100 channels of digital-quality music, news, sports, talk and children’s programs which are transmitted directly down to vehicle, home and portable radios across the country.

[ From XM Radio ]

Lots of links to studying radio
University of Iowa Communication Studies Resources
Radio Links Database

The American Museum of Radio

Sounds of History [ listen to radio recordings ]

Lots of links for studying radio history:
Radio History Society
Yahoo Directory: Radio History

Minnesota Public Radio: Sound Learning [ resources for English teachers linked to specific MPR programs ]

Webquest: Radio Production

For further reading;

Abel, J., & Glass, I. (1999). Radio: An illustrated guide. Chicago: WBEZ Alliance.

Douglas, S. (2004). Listening in: Radio and American imagination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Hilmes, M., & Lovigilio, J. (2001). Radio reader: Essays in the cultural history of radio. New York: Routledge.

Keith, M. (2003). The radio station. New York: Focal Press.

Naughton, J. (2000). A brief history of the future: From radio days to Internet years in a lifetime. New York: Overlook Press.

Module 9: Word document

The Value of Studying Popular Music

Purposes for Studying Popular Music as Media

Development of Recorded Popular Music

Different Music Genres

Rock

Jazz

Soul/Motown

Blues

Hip Hop/Rap

Punk

Folk

Country

Cajun/Zydeco

The Music of Protest

Music Videos

Film Music

The Economics of the Popular Music Industry

Studying Radio

Teaching Activity

References