Is Radio Still Good For Anything?

Radio is in decline at the moment. There’s no use pretending otherwise. As a business, bloated boom year revenues are down because the audience is moving on to other appliances for their audio entertainment and edification, and the advertising isn’t worth what it was even just a few years ago. And there’s not allegedly much hope for the up and coming generation to embrace radio, if this viral phenomenon authored by a 15-year old Morgan Stanley intern is any indication.

But really, radio has been begging for (and ultimately getting) attention from each new generation for the past 60 years or so. Unlike the pre-TV days, families don’t sit down together and listen to the radio, and they never will again. But that’s okay, since radio is the ideal 21st century companion to keep an individual informed and entertained while getting things done, while driving, or for listening unobtrusively in the dark while the rest of the household sleeps. Kids may not get this now, but they will in the future.

That’s why I believe there are several areas where radio remains--and will always remain--the superior means of delivering quality audio content, such as:

Live Coverage of REAL Breaking News. A well-run local news or news and talk station (with network affiliation) can bring listeners a near-perfect balance of The Truly Big National or International Story as well as the distinctive local angle and the shared local experience via intelligent and charismatic on-air talent.

Timely Topical Therapeutic Talk. What I mean by this is a call-in program with a charismatic host who can create conversations that are worth eavesdropping on for their news value and community-building value. One national example: the many hours of late night and overnight talk presented by NPR in the days following 9/11. With Scott Simon as host, a range of callers shared their thoughts, feelings, where-they-were-when stories and other reactions. No conclusions were reached as far as I can remember, but for those of us left sleepless in those dark days and nights, it was comforting to feel a part of the larger community. Locally, news and talk station KOMO switches to something they call “Neighbor to Neighbor/Driver to Driver Coverage” when conditions warrant, with regular radio news anchors fielding listener calls and giving brief news updates. I’ve spent many a snowy or windy night captivated by amateur descriptions of weather-related hassles on the roads or in the neighborhoods of the Pacific Northwest.

Live Coverage of Debates, Speeches, Political Conventions and Hearings. More often than not, visuals presented by TV of these sorts of public affairs events add nothing to the program (and otherwise just distract from the verbal content). Sure, there’s that old saw that, for radio listeners, Nixon beat Kennedy in the first 1960 presidential debate—but I’m willing to take my chances. Now, where’d I put my LazyShave?

Live Baseball. Baseball on TV (and in person, for that matter) is far inferior to baseball on the radio—the visuals are repetitive and add little to the enjoyment, and I don’t want to sit and look at anything for three-plus hours. With a talented aural broadcaster such as Hall of Famer Dave Niehaus, even the dullest game (and I’ve lived through a number of those courtesy of the Seattle Mariners, circa 1977-1994 and of late) comes alive as a shared experience on radio. Especially magical here on the West Coast are when extra innings result in games at SAFECO Field being the last Major League match-up still going, when it’s long after midnight in the east. Extra credit awarded to those dial twisters who can find a minor league contest emanating from the hinterlands.

Classical Music. I don’t own much in the way of classical music recordings, but I often like to have classical playing in the background when I need to focus on a writing project or other intellectual (?) pursuit. I count myself lucky to live in Seattle, home of legendary classical music station KING FM, who are also pioneers of online classical programming via king.org and who have a number of decent commercial-free HD classical channels that I can take advantage of when I don’t want distracting headlines, traffic and weather reports.

Jazz. Again, I don’t own a lot of jazz recording, but I sure love to hear a nice mix of classic and contemporary jazz at least a few times a week. Tacoma NPR affiliate KPLU offers jazz and blues on terrestrial FM, plus the pioneering commercial free Jazz 24 online (as well as via HD here in Western Washington).

Live “Curated” Programs. Sure, I could plug in my 30GB iPod and put together a pretty cool playlist of songs from just about any genre, and I often do. However, the frustrated ethnomusicologist in me also likes to hear the stories behind the songs, quirky anecdotes about the composer/performer, and how particular numbers fit into the larger context of the style, era or genre. Prime examples of Live “Curated” Programs include Seattle NPR affiliate KUOW’s Swing Years and Beyond with Amanda Wilde (Saturdays from 7:00 pm to 12:00 midnight Pacific) and Tacoma NPR affiliate KPLU’s All Blues with John Kessler (Saturdays and Sundays from 6:00 pm to 12:00 midnight Pacific), both available streaming live online.

Live Personalities. Like any medium, local or national radio featuring charismatic, intelligent and engaging on-air talent is hard to beat. However, with the 24/7 news cycle and worldwide events happening in faraway time zones, it is essential that the personalities be live—so that they can report and react as stories (inane and important) are moving on the wires or posting on the web. A good example of this nationally is Phil Hendrie; I’m sure you could name at least a few local examples where you live.

Live Performance. So much performance is sanitized for our protection these days by pre-taping and post-production, it’s easy to forget that a staple of radio’s first few decades was the live “pick-up” or remote broadcast of dance orchestras from hotel ballrooms in every big city in the country. A few brave souls carry on the tradition of regular live broadcasts of performances, notably Prairie Home Companion and the Metropolitan Opera and the wonderful annual New Year’s Eve broadcast of Toast of the Nation.

Can you think of anything else that radio is still good for?

Another On The Media, Another Week Without Michael Jackson Analysis

When I last week lamented the lack of Michael Jackson coverage on WNYC's On The Media, I said near the end of my posting, "I guess I have next week's episode to look forward to for what will likely be insightful analysis of the Jackson coverage." Wrong! This week, OTM featured pieces from the archive about longstanding media myths and how they propagate, including the Cuban Missile Crisis, Rosa Parks and Kitty Genovese. It was great stuff, but not what I wanted to hear and nowhere near being topical at a time that cried out for topicality--and probably not something that would have happened were OTM a commercial production. I'm guessing the OTM folks were off for the Fourth of July holiday last week, but how long will the world have to wait for brilliant OTM treatment of the Michael Jackson coverage?

Lake Wobegon Job Shadow: My Prairie Home Companion “Embed” Experience

On July 1, 2009, PBS aired an American Masters special featuring Garrison Keillor. I missed the live broadcast, but hope to catch a rerun sometime in the next few weeks. Reading about the special got me thinking about how back in June 2004, I spent two days “job-shadowing” with the production team for the live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion on June 26, 2004. The show was produced that week at King County’s Marymoor Park in Redmond, Washington, not too far from where I live in Seattle.

I’d heard a few months earlier that the show was coming to town, so I’d sent a letter to Garrison Keillor’s office in St. Paul, Minnesota asking for the opportunity to see how the show was done. The reasoning in my request was that since I produce an annual live holiday radio play (one of the only regularly scheduled live radio plays in the United States), I thought I could learn a thing or two from watching some real pros at work.

A kindly member of the staff (who, I believe, has since moved on) called me a week or so before the show to let me know that they’d agreed to let me hang out, and giving me instructions to report to stage manager Albert Webster. I was to arrive mid-morning on Friday, June 25, the day before the show. The weather was perfect the way late June in the Pacific Northwest can sometimes be, sunny with high temps in the mid 70s and low humidity. I drove to Marymoor and parked my car in a secret spot near the maintenance barn, stopped in to say “hi” to the Marymoor crew, and then reported to the backstage area of the then-new Marymoor Amphitheater. Marymoor is a beautiful park that was once a hunting lodge and model farm belonging to James and Anna Clise, a prominent Seattle couple from the early 20^th century. It was a place I knew very well, from field trips and picnics there as a child in the 1970s, and from working as Economic Development Manager for the King County Park System in the 1990s.

Albert Webster was professional, courteous and kind—actually, everyone I met throughout my two days could be described the same way. Mr. Webster introduced me to most of the crew and musicians as they went about their important duties, and I did my best to stay out of everyone’s way (and to grasp as much as I could about the logistics and the vibe of the operation). I even got to join the cast and crew for a catered lunch in the nearby Clise Mansion.

Not long after lunch, the cast and guest performers arrived for an early afternoon sound-check and run through. I spent a lot of time speaking with sound effects guy and Mouth Sounds author Fred Newman and with actress Sue Scott, who were both generous with their time. My designated post was downstage left, right next to Albert Webster’s work area. From this spot, I watched all the set-up and rehearsals into the early evening. It seems that Keillor and crew prepare about 120%-130% of the material they need. As rehearsals progress on Friday and Saturday, they assemble a draft “rundown” of the songs and sketches (in a draft order) on a chalkboard backstage, ultimately winnowing down to the right amount of material to fill the two-hour broadcast.

Garrison Keillor arrived sometime in the early afternoon Friday and disappeared into a backstage area. At some point, he made a request for Marymoor Park brochures, apparently to help pepper the script with local flavor. A Prairie staffer went to the park office and came back with an armload maps and other materials. After awhile, Mr. Keillor came out from backstage and asked for someone to help locate a park employee, someone who could provide for him some additional local information for the script. I raised my hand and said that I’d be happy to help myself, having worked at Marymoor. Mr. Keillor motioned for me to follow him backstage and then invited me to take a seat next to small table where he was working on the script. He briefly explained what he was looking for, what the various scripts were about, and what kinds of things he needed help with.

All in all, I helped a teeny bit with the list of Marymoor amenities that appear in what became a sound-effects script called Marymoor and with some descriptive details for the Guy Noir script (I couldn’t find the Noir script online—I recall suggesting the name “Skagit” and the Labrador Retriever breed for the dog owned by a cliché Seattle yuppie type, and suggesting the words “it’s like a snail without a shell” for the description of a slug). Later, during on-stage rehearsal, I gave additional unsolicited recommendations to the sound effects script called Marymoor (clarifying that the cricket pitch at Marymoor served East Indians—not Brits—so that Fred Newman and Tim Russell used East Indian rather than Oxbridge accents for their brief “thank you very much” lines); and to The Lives of the Cowboys (suggesting the replacement of a reference to a cactus with reference instead to a Douglas fir). I was extremely flattered that Mr. Keillor and the other actors graciously and generously used all of my suggestions in the live performance, but I don’t think a single thing I contributed got much of a laugh. My apologies to all concerned.

The next day included more rehearsing and more refining of the various sketches until early afternoon (showtime in the Pacific Time Zone is 3 pm). Watching the actual live broadcast from the special stage seating area was an unexpected treat—I thought maybe I’d be relegated to a stool backstage. If you go to the slide show on this page, you can see me in Photo 8, to the left of mandolin player Peter Ostrushko (I’m the blank-expressioned blurry guy with short brown hair and glasses—remarkable how much higher the hairline has traveled since that photo was taken).

The most useful “takeaway” from my experience being embedded with A Prairie Home Companion was to learn the value of having a decent “warm-up” for the audience before any live broadcast. Garrison Keillor went on stage about 15 minutes before the show, making jokes and performing songs with the musical guests. Later that year, I instituted a warm-up before my live broadcast from Seattle’s Museum of History & Industry on KPLU-FM of The Bishop’s Wife (using the Lux Radio Theatre script), and have continued to include a warm-up every year since. In previous years, I had brought the cast on stage with only about five minutes to spare before showtime, and had depended on the announcer to read a few scripted instructions about turning off cellphones, feeling free to clap and laugh out loud, etc. Nowadays, I handle the warm-up duties myself, telling a few lame jokes, giving a brief history of live radio drama, having the sound effects guy demonstrate a few tricks, and then introducing each cast member as the clock moves inexorably toward showtime. I certainly feel more warmed up by the time the ON AIR light comes on, and I think the audience does, too.

I remain grateful to the good folks of A Prairie Home Companion for letting me spend two days with them back in 2004. The experience provided me with a lot of great memories, and a fair amount of inspiration for what’s possible on live radio.

On The Media: Missed Opportunity and What's With "Edited . . . by Brooke"?

I've been listening pretty religiously to the weekly radio program On The Media for the past decade or so and I generally love it (though I'd, not surprisingly, love to hear more criticism of radio content). The show is produced by public radio station WNYC in New York and distributed by NPR to affiliates around the country. In the past year or so, I've been doing most of my listening via the weekly podcast (the program is heard Sunday evenings in Seattle, but is available by download on the preceding Friday).

This week, the show apparently had the unfortunate timing to have been produced before Thursday's death of Michael Jackson and the web vs. traditional media frenzy that followed. I just listened to this week's On The Media (midday Saturday, June 27) and was dismayed to find no mention of what's looking to be a defining moment in new media (and what was being characterized as such as early as late Thursday, when TMZ was credited with breaking the story of Jackson's death). Granted, On The Media doesn't bill itself as a to-the-minute topical show, but it seems to me that if there were ever a time to pull an already produced episode and start over, or at least re-edit to include a story about the unprecedented quantity and nature of media coverage of Jackson's death, this would have been the week to do so (particularly since topics in this week's show included what could have been complementary stories: an interview with bloggers hired by old school newspapers and a piece about ambush interviews). I guess I have next week's episode to look forward to for what will likely be insightful analysis of the Jackson coverage.

While I'm at it, as much as I like On The Media, the little "audio editing inside joke" near the end of each episode when co-host Bob Garfield says that the show is, "edited . . . by Brooke" is sometimes cute, sometimes irritating. Not to kill a joke by trying to analyze it, but I assume that the pause between "edited" and "by" is made by Mr. Garfield so that co-host and editor Brooke Gladstone will have to make a manual cut using ProTools or whatever audio editing software she uses (though she never does make such a cut). Am I wrong? Is it an oblique tribute to Ed Murrow's "This . . . is London"? Am I over sensitive? Is there a backstory to this that I'm not aware of? Please set me straight!

Radio Criticism: Radio's Free Ride

You can’t open a paper or magazine or website nowadays without stumbling across critical reviews of movies, plays, TV shows, web videos, restaurants, chiropractors and plumbers. For some reason, the same can’t be said of, you guessed it, radio. In Seattle, we were lucky enough until a few months ago to have two daily papers (each of which, unusually, had a full-time TV critic until 2008). The now defunct Seattle Post-Intelligencer (still online but no longer publishing a print edition) had a weekly radio column written by Bill Virgin. While Bill (who—full disclosure—is a friend) wasn’t exactly a radio critic, he covered local and national trends in the radio industry, previewed upcoming programs (including several radio dramas and documentaries produced by yours truly), and kept readers abreast of the constant personnel and format changes that are a fixture of local radio. Bill’s weekly column is deeply missed, and its absence calls attention to a larger issue many decades in the making.

Even though there are more than 600 million radios in use in the U.S., the average household has 5.6 radio receivers, and radio reaches 96% of people 12 and older weekly (these Arbitron figures are quoted here), it’s been years since a national publication has devoted significant and consistent resources to previewing and reviewing national radio programs. Most column inches about radio are devoted to controversy: statements made by Imus, Stern or Limbaugh; layoffs at NPR; stunts pulled by local FM jocks. Nobody looks at programming trends, history, technique, production quality, or treatment of subject matter—in short, radio content gets a critical free ride. Try to remember the last time you read anything thoughtful in a general circulation publication about the content or performance quality of This American Life , A Prairie Home Companion, All Things Considered, Air America, Phil Hendrie, Sirius/XM, Tavis Smiley, or Rush Limbaugh.

For examples of what radio criticism can be, one must look to the distant past, when writers such as Jack Gould of the New York Times, John Crosby of the New York Herald Tribune, and Ben Gross of the New York Daily News regularly wrote about radio (and TV) for their respective publications, and (in the case of Crosby and Gross) published books of radio and TV criticism. Crosby’s Out of the Blue and Gross’ I Looked and I Listened (both originally published in the 1950s) can be purchased secondhand without too much trouble; a posthumous collection of Gould’s TV columns was published in 2002.

My hope for contemporary radio criticism isn’t simply to trash bad programs. Effective criticism is fair, but it recognizes good work, and holds accountable executives, producers and performers when the work isn’t so good (yes, there is subjectivity in criticism). Effective criticism examines what went well and what didn’t, and ultimately inspires creation of better programming and fosters more choices for listeners. Effective well-written criticism is also fun to read, and can inspire new audiences to tune in or download something they otherwise would have ignored. Especially in the age of podcasts and downloads, reviews and recommendations of audio programs can be more useful than ever, since the option to easily hear a program again is a fairly new phenomenon. Add to this the programming on web radio, HD radio and satellite radio, and the choices available to the average listener are overwhelming.

So, I’m going to try and occasionally fill this critical void where I can with the I Still Love Radio blog. Stay tuned. And tell me if I suck.