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Hartford CourantThere was a time when radio was fun. Today’s venomous political talk shows and the prevalence of Don Imus-style shock-jock racism – which, until last week, anyway, passed as radio humor – make it easy to forget the appeal of Top 40 radio and, later, FM album rock. Radio once was an immediate and enjoyable introduction to pop culture. Its influence on those who grew up in the 1950s and ‘60s, and its more recent degeneration, are the subjects of Marc Fisher’s “Something in the Air.” Fisher, a columnist for The Washington Post, chronicles the history of radio since shortly after World War II, mostly through profiles of announcers and executives. This account essentially begins at the birth of commercial TV, when conventional wisdom said the new medium would soon kill, or at least cripple, the old one. In Fisher’s view, radio continued to thrive due in large part to an Omaha, Neb., station owner who developed the earliest incarnation of the Top 40. In 1949, Todd Storz’ KOWH had a typical schedule of farm programs, country-music shows and pop performances straight from New York City nightclubs. Storz replaced them with a tight play list of popular records, played repeatedly. He got the idea, he said, from watching how customers behaved around a jukebox. “People demand their favorites over and over,” Storz said. The idea was a success in Omaha and soon became the dominant format across the country. Playing the hits, regardless of genre, helped introduce rhythm and blues – “race music,” as it was called – to white audiences. Not that Storz or other programmers were civil rights pioneers. “We follow the trend,” he said. “We don’t try to lead it.” Fisher concentrates on little-known but illustrative figures like Storz. He makes only passing reference to Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh. Instead, he provides skillful portraits of Jean Shepherd, a mesmerizing overnight storyteller on WOR in New York, best known as the author of “A Christmas Story”; Tom Donahue, a pioneer of the free-form FM format in Los Angeles and San Francisco; and Bill Siemering, National Public Radio’s first program director and developer of “All Things Considered,” radio’s preeminent news broadcast, even after more than 35 years . Not everyone Fisher portrays is a hero. There’s Lee Abrams, one of many consultants hired in the 1970s by managers who lacked the confidence to program their own stations. Abrams, a devotee of audience research, shielded listeners from songs that didn’t “test well,” which helped squeeze the life from free-form FM. Today, Abrams works for XM, the satellite radio service, where his advice to programmers is “Don’t surprise people,” according to a memo cited by Fisher. Similar thinking afflicts even public radio. David Giovannoni, another Fisher subject, has made a career advising public stations to pay greater attention to ratings and to air programs that appeal to those most likely to donate. Under Giovannoni’s approach, Fisher writes, classical and jazz shows are jettisoned in favor of news and talk programs that appeal to “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered” listeners. If stations must have a classical program, he recommends music that scores well with focus groups, usually less complex pieces with a singable melody. Consultants, Fisher argues, along with concentration of ownership, are major reasons for radio’s current listlessness. Not so long ago, a single owner could control no more than seven AM and seven FM stations. Now, a company can own a virtually unlimited number, including as many as eight in a single market. The result, Fisher says, is less local programming and more unimaginative, cookie-cutter radio. While he is effective at diagnosing radio’s problems, Fisher keeps an upbeat and entertaining tone. He concludes with sections on the promise of Web-based radio and the charm of a small, decidedly un-slick Long Island station. His message is that no matter how sorely programmers, private and public alike, test listeners’ faith, there’s still reason to believe in radio.—BILL LEWIS, Courant Staff Writer |