I’m a student and a fan of our business as much as I am a participant in it and think there’s value in knowing where you’ve been in finding the best path to where you’re going. But, it goes beyond that for me, there is a certain nostalgia, charge for my passion battery in hearing particularly the stations I grew up with.
So on a recent Tuesday morning, it felt like Christmas when I get an email from the great Giovanni with a Dropbox link to a dozen classic 92 PRO FM Providence airchecks and promos, maybe from the late 80s and early 90s when I began listening to radio in my hometown and imaging a career in radio. And something struck me not only hearing the jocks and the music, the imaging, jingles but the callers, the spots all of it—radio had so much more show business glimmer and panache 30+ years ago. Radio stations jumped out the radio with a swashbuckling swagger that is rare or presented as “retro” today and its not a phenomenon of this business alone.
Politicians speak more like Joe at the bar these days when in this bygone era you’d hear about “morning in America” and “a thousand points of light”. Movies were big and unabashedly over the top and we aren’t talking about the CGI. TV had a minute long graphic with a theme and all the laser beam SFX you could handle to announce a “Special presentation” vs a skip button. Heck even the commercials were different then. Life was a little brighter, a little rosier, a little more performative than it is today; the colors were neon and loud, the landscapes busy and moving.
Radio once matched this feel. Life itself has come to match this aesthetic of clean lines, primary colors, more conversational and low key. Study after study suggests people crave “authenticity” in this digitized reality we live in and its easy to understand why. Yet? Spend 5 minutes scrolling TikTok, watching reality tv shows or the billion dollar super hero movies that drive the box office and streaming, is there anything authentic about them? Sure maybe but primarily they are a fun distraction in a complicated world.
America was at war in 1991 with a Middle Eastern nation; there was a Republican president and economic concerns but there was David Simpson on PRO FM (who by the way I love working with on our team at WEBE-FM today) hooting and hollering over Stevie B intros and giving away cash with the phrase that paid. I’m anti BS and pro “real”…but radio really could use a bit more of that over the top fun and less “listen for 10 in a row” liners. Its show business, business is half the equation for sure but we might do better business by noticing which word comes first!
