Radio production courses: A survey of current practice

With the domination of broadcasting by television in the 1950s and since, academics of both teaching and research persuasions have tended to ignore the older and larger (in number of stations) medium of radio. Courses in radio announcing and production, usually the oldest in most schools’ curricula, were summarily suspended or simply faded away for lack of student and faculty interest. Meanwhile, of course, radio continued to grow, and with the resurgence of FM and interest in high‐fidelity sound in the mid‐sixties, students in both film and broadcasting courses began to request more audio training and practice. In the following article, the author surveys current practices in radio production based on returns to a nationwide request for data. Throughout, comparison is made with the APBE composite course outline for such a course, published in 1970. Dr. Martin is associate professor in the department of radio‐TV at California State College—Long Beach.