Radio Studies

The Biographical Encyclopedia of American Radio presents the very best biographies of the Encyclopedia of Radio in a single volume. It includes more than 200 biographical entries on the most important and influential American radio personalities, writers, producers, directors, newscasters, and network executives. ...

Encyclopedia of Radio includes more than 600 entries covering major countries and regions of the world as well as specific programs and people, networks and organizations, regulation and policies, audience research, and radio's technology. This encyclopedic work will be the first broadly conceived reference source on a medium that is now nearly eighty years old, with essays that provide essential information on the subject as well as comment on the significance of the particular person, organization, or topic being examined.

The term "Old Time Radio" refers to the relatively brief period from 1926, when the National Broadcasting Company first began network broadcasting, until approximately 1960, when television became the dominant communication medium in the United States. During this time, radio was as popular and ubiquitous as television is today. It was amazingly varied in the types of programming it offered; many characters and programs were so popular that virtually everyone was familiar with them. ...

This book introduces radio from early history, and previews technological considerations. With its emphasis on the business of radio, it helps students understand both the industry and how radio stations attract and retain an audience that could be with other media forms.

How did Philip Gault become The Whisperer? What radio series was the proving ground for a motion picture? Who owned the Solomon Levy Department Store? The answers to these and many other questions can be found in this encyclopedic reference work to 1802 radio programs broadcast from the years 1924 through 1984. ...

When it first appeared in the 1930s, FM radio was a technological marvel, providing better sound and nearly eliminating the static that plagued AM stations. It took another forty years, however, for FM's popularity to surpass that of AM. In Sounds of Change, Christopher Sterling and Michael Keith detail the history of FM, from its inception to its dominance (for now, at least) of the airwaves. ...

Acoustic Properties: Radio, Narrative, and the New Neighborhood of the Americas discovers the prehistory of wireless culture. It examines both the co-evolution of radio and the novel in Argentina, Cuba, and the United States from the early 1930s to the late 1960s, and the various populist political climates in which the emerging medium of radio became the chosen means to produce the voice of the people. ...

This history of commercial radio networks in the United States provides a wealth of information on broadcasting from the 1920s to the present. It covers the four transcontinental webs that operated during the pre-television Golden Age, plus local and regional hookups, and the developments that have occurred in the decades since, including the impact of television, the rise of the disc jockey, the rise of talk radio and other specialized formats, implications of satellite technology and consolidation of networks and local stations.

Calling All Cars shows how radio played a key role in an emerging form of policing during the turbulent years of the Depression. Until this time popular culture had characterized the gangster as hero, but radio crime dramas worked against this attitude and were ultimately successful in making heroes out of law enforcement officers. ...

The openings and closings to radio programs of all types, from comedies (Blondie, The Jack Benny Program, Lum and Abner) to mysteries (Inner Sanctum Mysteries, The Black Chapel) to game shows (Can You Top This?, Truth or Consequences) to serials (Second Husband, Bachelor's Children) to crime dramas (The Falcon, Eno Crime Clues, The Green Hornet, Mr. and Mrs. North) to westerns (Gunsmoke, Wild Bill Hickok, Hawk Larabee) that were aired between 1931 and 1972, are included in this work. ...

While cultural historians and media scholars have been looking at television for decades, they have only recently turned their eyes (and ears) to radio. Studies of television rarely acknowledge that many of its forms-soap operas, situation comedies, quiz shows, sportscasts, etc.-all evolved out of the earlier medium. The essays collected here demonstrate that radio set patterns that have effected all forms of media that have followed it, and also look at how it has survived the coming of media that supposedly made it obsolete.

Original essays exploring important developments in radio and television broadcasting. The essays included in this collection represent some of the best cultural and historical research on broadcasting in the U. S. today. Each one concentrates on a particular event in broadcast history--beginning with Marconi's introduction of wireless technology in 1899. Michael Brown examines newspaper reporting in America of Marconi's belief in Martians, stories that effectively rendered Marconi inconsequential to the further development of radio. ...