Typologies of radio station target audiences

One of the most frustrating methodological problems facing researchers interested in broadcast programming is that of classification of target audiences and programming formats. The following article presents a new approach to this problem, one that keeps in mind the varying approaches to radio programming in the United States today. Robert Moomey is Program Manager of WIND, the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company radio station in Chicago. Roger Skolnik, who formerly was on the faculty of the University of Illniois at Chicago Circle, recently earned his doctorate in Michigan State Unversity and currently is Executive Producer at WIND.     

Analysis of broadcast literature: Broadcast Journalism in “education on the air” 1930–1953

During the past six years the Journal of Broadcasting has brought to its readers bibliographies on specific topics (audience measurement techniques, content analysis, etc.) and from publications devoted to a specific field (law, economics, journalism, etc.). The bibliography published below belongs to this second category. Education on the Air, the yearbook of the Institute for Education by Radio‐Television, is a continuous record of the deliberations of a convention devoted to exploring the informative and cultural uses of broadcasting. Under the direction of I. Keith Tyler, the IERT was for many years the only major association devoted exclusively to this subject area, and many of the present organizations now in the field are “spin‐offs” from these annual meetings hosted by the Ohio State University. Within the framework of the IERT, the subject of broadcast journalism has not been neglected. Over a period of almost 30 years, this use of radio for informing the public of the events of the day was discussed in various IERT sessions.

This bibliography was prepared to assist researchers and students interested in the growth and development of broadcast journalism as reflected in the IERT annual meetings. Dr. Heath is professor of journalism at Oklahoma State University, and is former chairman of the Council on Radio‐Television Journalism of the Association for Education in Journalism. Mr. Wolfson is working toward his doctorate at Michigan State University. They collaborated on this bibliography while at Iowa State University.     

Some effects of voice quality on retention

All radio and television stations in some way use the human voice as a major communications tool in their programming and their programs and advertising messages. Although some research into this instrument was conducted, particularly in the late 1920s and 1930s, research into the qualities and effects of broadcast voices recently has been infrequent.

Ken Hadwiger earned the M.A. from the University of Iowa and the Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma. A former member of the faculty at Wichita State University, he presently is Director of Mass Communications at Eastern Illinois University. Dr. Hadwiger has logged eight years of professional radio and television announcing and directing experience.     

Broadcast advertising by candidates for the Michigan legislature: 1970

There's been a good deal of attention given in recent years to the effects of media on political campaigns, but most of that concern has centered on Presidential, Senate, and House contests. The following article, however, focuses in on the grass‐roots level by examining broadcast media use by candidates for the Michigan State legislature in the off‐year elections of 1970. Using state records and a survey of candidates, the author has constructed a picture of radio‐TV campaigning suggesting a wide variety of use, interest in further use, but limitations on usage by what candidates term excessive cost of broadcast time. This concern over expense overrides, to some extent, the recognized impact of media which in this survey correlates strongly with election success. The study is taken from the author's master's thesis written at Indiana State University.     

The forced choice as a measure of television station image

That intangible attribute of a broadcast station commonly called its “image” isn't quite as hard to measure as that other intangible asset, “good will.” Nevertheless, measurement isn't simple, and the standards for measurement are not yet agreed upon. In the following article, a new technique of indexing a station's image without special training and supervision of the respondents is illustrated. Malachi C. Topping, author of “The Cultural Orientation of Certain ‘Western’ Characters on Television” in the Fall, 1965 issue of the Journal, earned his Ph.D. at Ohio State University and is Assistant Professor of Radio and Television at Oklahoma State University.     

The former broadcast employee: A report from the APBE‐NAB employment study

Today, when most Americans get most of their news from the broadcast media, we tend to forget just how recent a development this has been. Broadcast journalism is far from celebrating its 50th anniversary as a major source of news, since it did not develop until the mid‐1930s. The early relationships between the older print media and the newer medium of radio were not friendly, and the fledgling broadcast journalists needed considerable diplomatic skill in dealing with the wire services and their own employers, as well as pastepot and scissors to deal with the day's events. The story of how broadcast journalism became strong enough to cover so effectively the stories of World War II is inexorably tied to the “war” between promoters and detractors of news broadcasting during the 1930s.

George Lott. has studied at William and Mary and Michigan State University, where he is working on a Ph.D. in speech. He presently is assistant professor in the Department of Theatre and Speech at the College of William and Mary.     

Methods for Collecting,Processing, and Providing Access to Electronic Serials

The issues surrounding methods for collecting, processing, and providing access to electronic serials are discussed. Weston debates the access versus ownership issues of electronic journals, and discusses the changing roles of systems and acquisitions librarians in the provision of access to these journals. Reinke outlines the University of Houston's acquisitions process, an approach paralleling traditional serials acquisitions methods. Morgan describes an automated serials acquisitions process developed at the North Carolina State University.     

Mining the Peabody Archive

This paper provides an overview of the Peabody Collection of radio and television programs housed at the University of Georgia. The collection is one of the largest broadcast archives in the county, with holdings of more than 30,000 programs. Instructions are provided for scholars wishing to utilize this goldmine of early programming dating back to 1940 (for radio) and 1948 (for television). The archive's tie to the Peabody Awards process is detailed, because the connection impacts access procedures and speaks to the potential biases and strengths of the holdings. The unique advantages of the archive include the large cache of companion print materials and the wealth of public service and local programming. The limitations are discussed, primarily the time-consuming protocols necessary for locating programs of interest Scholarly work utilizing both radio and television materials from the archives is briefly noted.     

Television on trial

If the mass media indeed reflect our current values in their programming, then a study of the characters in television “westerns” should help us better to understand ourselves. Malachi C. Topping, Jr. earned his Ph.D. at Ohio State University and is Assistant Professor of Radio and Television at Oklahoma State University.     

Journalism

George E. Stevens and John B. Webster's Law and the Student Press (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1973---price not given, paper)

Jerome L. Nelson's Libel. A Basic Program for Beginning Journalists (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1973---price not given, paper)

Art of the Printed Book: 1455-1955 (New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1973---$20.00/11.00)

Bruce Buschel, Albert Robbins, William Vitta, and Rod Nordland's The Watergate File (New York: Quick Fox Inc., 33 West 60th St., 1973---$3.95, paper)     

Did They Say What They Thought? Gender,Sound, and Oral History in a Wisconsin Women’s Radio Program

The physical remnants of long-lost radio programs are not the only sounds that broadcast historians must unearth to unravel the mysteries of radio production and reception. In this essay, I examine the audio tapes of a 1980 oral history interview of Isabel Baumann, a Wisconsin farm wife, rural activist, and radio personality who appeared for twenty years on a monthly local radio show called The We Say What We Think Club. I tell the story of how these recordings came to be archived at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin and the unique institutional context that preserved Baumann’s voice for future generations. The tapes of Baumann’s recollections of her farm life and radio career offer us not only one of the few examples of the sound of Baumann’s voice, but gives insight into how the very process of making oral histories helped her (and ultimately, us) understand the power of her radio work. Oral histories offer a space for women, so often marginalized in the industry and in historical narratives, to say what they think. Most importantly, the audio recovered from these academic projects allow historians to record with more fidelity what these women thought.     

A User-Centered Approach to Addressing Issues of Discoverability and Access

eResource access problems challenge electronic resources librarians and frustrate users. Challenges of using library systems can include information overload, links that do not work properly, incorrect metadata, and questionable relevance to search results. Nate Hosburgh, Electronic Resources Librarian at Montana State University, gave a presentation titled “A User-Centered Approach to Addressing Issues of Discoverability and Access” at the Mississippi State University Libraries’ eResource & Emerging Technologies Summit held in the Mitchell Memorial Library on August 2, 2013. Hosburgh spoke of lessons he and his team learned about troubleshooting eResources and his team’s approach to issues of discoverability and access.     

College Radio Takeovers and Shutdowns: An Analysis of News Coverage from 2006–2016

Between 2010 and 2015, more than 30 college radio stations either went off air, transferred their licenses, or entered into programming or shared-time agreements. Among these are Vanderbilt University’s KRVU 91.1 FM, University of San Francisco’s KUSF 90.3 FM, Rice University’s KTRU 96.1 FM, and Georgia State University’s WRAS 88.5 FM. In what seems to be a shrinking presence of college radio on the FM dial, this study examines national and local news coverage of recent college radio shutdowns, transfers, and agreements to understand how these events are being presented in the news media. Findings suggest themes in news coverage includes a great deal of attention to the student, alumni, and community responses to station closures and transfers, but limited attention to reasons for the closures and transfers. University administrators were the most commonly quoted or referenced sources in the sample; students, alumni, community, faculty, and staff held significantly smaller shares of voice. Questions about the coverage of college radio closures and transfers as well as college radio’s future viability are discussed.     

A prescription for AM radio programming!

During the past several years the academic community has written an obituary for radio, particularly AM radio. The broadcast curricula usually lack “real world”; orientation. Programming, sales, and management classes often reflect materials designed more appropriately for large metro radio stations. Little research has been published on AM or FM radio. The lack of academic journals devoted exclusively to radio broadcasting (exception is the new Journal of Radio Studies) testifies to the importance the academic community places on radio broadcast research and theoretical concepts. The author suggests a rapprochement of broadcasting curricula, including programming—a critical element in any future success of radio, and AM in particular.     

The broadcasters’ duty to editorialize

No matter how many years a person has worked in the broadcasting industry, he can only become acquainted with the organizational structure of a very limited number of stations—and his knowledge of these stations goes rapidly out of date. Although there are basic similarities in most stations—the division into programming, engineering, administrative, and sales for example— it would be unusual to find two stations with exactly the same functions, problems, and personnel. The need to know some of the variations of station organization is particularly acute among those students and others who are planning to find employment for the first time in a particular type or size of station. To assist these individuals, their teachers, and all those interested in broadcast management, the following report on some “typical” and atypical stations was prepared.

Both Lawrence W. Lichty and Joseph M. Ripley earned their Ph.D. degrees at The Ohio State University, and have contributed to the Journal of Broadcasting a number of times in the past. At the time this research was conducted they were Assistant and Associate Professor respectively in the Department of Speech at the University of Wisconsin. As of the fall of 1967, Dr. Lichty will be Associate Professor at Wisconsin and Dr. Ripley will be Chairman of the Department of Radio‐Television‐Film at the University of Kentucky.     

The Performance Rights Act: Radio Broadcasting Faces Major Challenge in Long Battle Against Music Licensing

In 2009, Congressional subcommittees approved a bill which would impose a performance fee on radio stations playing music over the air, known as the Performance Rights Act (PRA). Passage of the PRA could historically alter the relationship between the radio broadcast industry and the music industry. Terrestrial broadcast radio stations have paid music licensing agencies fees to songwriters and composers but never to the artists. This study examines the acrimonious relationship radio broadcasters have had with the music licensing agencies over the past eight decades, and the potential impact of the PRA on the future of terrestrial radio.     

The effect of labeling on perceptions of the quality of AM and FM signals

The extent to which a barrier against AM radio listening has resulted from imagined versus real differences between AM and FM signal quality was addressed by examining the effects of AM and FM labels versus actual AM and FM signal quality differences. A total of 605 college undergraduates in four separate groups rated a recording of an AM broadcast, an FM broadcast, or a recording of a compact disc identified as either an AM or FM broadcast on semantic differential scales for fidelity, technical sound, hiss/noise/distortion, and overall quality. For all four scales, signals identified as FM (simulated and actual) were rated significantly more favorably than signals identified as AM. The results suggest that attitudinal barriers to the acceptance of AM radio depress evaluations of AM radio signals when compared to FM radio signals of the same quality.