Various Dial Positions

Okay, I'm running out of clever names for catch-all posts such as this that are a round-up of recent items and links. Let me know if you have any better ideas for a title I can use consistently (without getting sick of it).

First, I wrote a piece for Crosscut late last year that wasn't published until a week or so ago. It's called In Search of a New Radio 'Sweet Spot' and is another lamentation over automated radio.

Second, longtime Seattle Supersonics broadcaster Bob Blackburn passed away last Friday. Casey McNerthney wrote a nice story for the seattlepi.com that included a link to audio of a panel discussion I moderated on the 25th anniversary of the Sonics' one and only NBA Championship.

Bob was a panelist and was incredibly nice. At some point, I mistakenly called him "Blob Backburn," and, as my ears reddened in shame, Bob said not to worry, Steve Allen had called him that back in the 1940s when they both were in radio in Los Angeles. Bob got a laugh, and I felt a lot better in spite of my blunder.


Third (and last), here's another piece of cool old radio ephemera, this time a promotional booklet produced by CBS after the Anschluss in 1938 (the official title is VIENNA MARCH, 1938 - a footnote for historians from the Columbia Broadcasting System). The graphics are fabulous, and the booklet itself is a nice synopsis of the crisis and CBS' coverage (including the first-ever "round up" from multiple foreign capitals).