I will admit it: I am a buff, an aficionado, a fan of broadcasting history. I love listening to old Top 40 radio airchecks and I have spent hours of my life watching old TV newscasts from the 1960’s and 1970’s. I’m not sure what the attraction is. Maybe it’s a longing for a simpler, possibly better time.
Old Top 40 Radio has a style and a class all it’s own. Music radio, any more, has become an I Pod with a transmitter. There is no real personality injected into radio anymore. I will listen to airchecks from Robert W. Morgan, The Real Don Steele, Dan Ingram, Ron Lundy, George Michael (God rest his soul) and others of that era. They all had an excitement about playing music and being on the radio. They would talk up to the post of a song and get it right every time! They would interweave jingles to connect songs together while adding pace and tempo to the entire presentation. These were the days when every radio station had a news department. Now, it’s just a rare few who have live people in a newsroom reporting the local news. Back then, newsrooms would have several reporters out on the street, following a beat. I was amazingly fortunate to cut my teeth in radio news at WHO in Des Moines. What I learned there allowed me to branch out and have the career I have had. But I feel like I was the last guy out of the room who had to turn off the light. Radio has been so consolidated and radio newsrooms have been used as a way to balance the company budget. Anymore, colleges with broadcast journalism departments focus mostly on TV and not radio. Which is too bad. Radio can be an art form when the proper time and attention is given.
I enjoy watching old TV newscast clips that I have either picked up through collecting or been able to watch on YouTube. Again, there is something magical about watching those old newscasts from back in the day. Maybe it’s because I remember watching TV news when I was a young child and I remember clearly thinking to myself how cool it would be to be able to tell people what was happening in the world around them. Locally, I remember watching Russ Van Dyke and Paul Rhodes on KCCI and Mike Keen and TJ Beer on WHO. I was in awe of what they did. When I was in Kindergarten, while everyone else was running around playing cops and firefighter, I was running around with an imaginary microphone asking them what was happening.
I sometimes think I am too young for nostalgia. Then I remember the world we all live in: a world which moves at the speed of light and where new information is old in the blink of an eye. A world where every day is filled with pressures and deadlines and concerns about content. A world where technology is rapidly forcing journalists to change the way they do business. Maybe the reason I am drawn to things of the past is because they are nothing like the things of the present. Perhaps there is a peace and a calm about sitting down and listening and watching people who did their work in an entirely different way than it is being done now. Is the past better? I would like to think not. But now, a lot of what is happening in the world around us is like that old saying about a tasty steak: you don’t want to see how it is made.
Some nostalgia for you to enjoy now. For starters, this 1975 video from KCCI in Des Moines:
Then there’s this legal ID used the 1970’s from WHO in Des Moines:
How about this 1974 newscast clip from WNBC in New York. It’s a tongue in cheek report about President Nixon:
And finally, this news promo from WBBM in Chicago from 1977. Watch for Bill Kurtis!
All clips from a simpler time. A happier time? You be the judge.
Random Thoughts:
(1) I heard a guy talking the other day on TV about how e-mails and text messages will hurt future historians who want to study this time period. So much of history is researched through the written word because it “lives” on paper. Texts and e-mails are here now and deleted later, never to be seen again. Maybe this guy has a point.
(2) A new study released today says sleeping in on the weekend will not help you make-up any sleep you may have lost during the week. Maybe not, but it’s fun to try.
(3) Why don’t any of the networks have a “retro” night where they re-run old programs that made them popular? Can you imagine if NBC make Thursday a “Retro” night and showed old episodes of “Family Ties”, “Cheers” and “Night Court”? I would watch. I think it would be kind of neat.
That’s it for tonight. Thanks for stopping by. If you get a moment and you’re not doing anything else, feel free to check out my other blog over at KSFY.COM.
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