Radio
| The medium of radio has always played a big part in my life. I was always fascinated by the stories of my grandmother Gwen, who would talk to me about the significance of radio in her life as a young women living on a farm in Northern Utah in the 1920's. Specifically, I enjoyed the story she told me of sitting with her college girlfriends on the hood of a car, waiting and listening for the first coast to coast radio broadcast ever made. Even 60 years after the event you could read importance of that occasion in her eyes. I became conscious of the significance of radio when I was a young boy of about 8 or 9 years old when I would listen to our local AM Rock stations from my bedside clock-radio. Those were the days of Wolfman Jack, KSRP AM (Salt Lake City), and KCPX AM (Salt Lake City). More than any other medium radio gave me a sense of the bigger world that existed outside of what I knew. Few things are more nostalgic to me than the sounds of that era; i.e., Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die," David Bowie's "Fame," Chicago's "Make Me Smile," and Elton John's "Bennie and The Jets." Throughout the years I've been drawn to radio and the unique world it encompasses. Unlike television, radio created a world I felt able to enter and make my own. Television is a medium which merely spoon-feeds it's audience, whereas radio allows one room for creative interpretation when entering it's realm. I feel blessed to have internalized this concept at an early age, and to have had it's influence as a part of my life throughout my youth. As times changed, so did the influence of radio upon me. In the early 1980's there was an emergence of "New Wave" radio, which exposed ever bigger audiences to the music coming out of England and the larger urban areas of the U.S.. Additionally, we in Salt Lake City were lucky enough to claim one of the most progressive and influential public, community radio stations in the nation (KRCL 90.9 FM). KRCL's emphasis on true punk and reggae formats was an influence in this town that cannot be underestimated. KRCL remains a station fast set in the minds of some of the most important alternative bands and artists of the era (i.e. Steel Pulse, Jimmy Cliff, X, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, et al). These are the radio entities that had sway over me during the early to mid-1980's. Although these formats may no longer appear extraordinary or unique, at the time, they gave me a special sense, not only of the further possibilities of music, but of the opportunities of the wider world that might exist outside the realm of my own youthful existence. While radio mainly served the musical interests of my youth, I was also interested and aware of the world of talk radio. During the 1970's and 1980's there existed a federal law here in the U.S. referred to as the "Fairness Doctrine," which stifled the small but emerging world of talk radio by limiting the format to "unbiased, bipartisan" commentary (or at least requiring equal time be given to opposing viewpoints). We therefore had to put up with the talk radio equivalent of unsweetened porridge. Anyone remember Larry King and Sally Jesse Rafael dominating the talk radio of the 1980's? Unfortunately I do. Well, the so called "Fairness" Doctrine was thankfully done away with in 1988, and initiated a grand new era for radio. This was the year Rush Limbaugh began his program of proud, clearly stated conservative commentary. While critics scoffed and dismissed this programming, continuing to claim that "mainstream" radio was unaffected and without bias, and therefore somehow more legitimate, Rush Limbaugh began amassing numbers of listeners and affiliate stations unknown to radio previously. Thanks to the pioneering efforts of Rush Limbaugh, radio, and it's significance as a media vehicle, would now be unrecognizable to the listeners of the 1980's. Radio continues to serve as an important outlet for the voices of those outside the formerly dominant media worlds of Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the Washington beltway. Others have followed Rush in continuing the evolution of modern radio formats; some successful, some not. This has been an effort for which I'm immensely grateful. Personalities as diverse as Howard Stern, Tom Lykas, Jim Rome, Michael Savage, and Michael Medved have now exposed us all to a bountiful world of communication still only hinting at it's ultimate potential. |
Radio Stations
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