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NBC MONITOR!
- Thread starter blackgold
- Start date
blackgold said:
I do and I think lots of people miss it. I believe it could work today. Here's a link to a really great Monitor Tribute Page:
http://www.monitorbeacon.net/
Joe
Didn't Bill Cullen contribute to Monitor?
The culture is so much lower than in the days of Monitor. A show like that needs class.
C
cd637299
Guest
jfrancispastirchak said:
I don't think there was anybody who worked on any NBC program at the time of Monitor that didn't!
I knew about the website, but man I keep forgetting about it. Need to bookmark.
I do think that since there are no more truly "full service" radio stations now, I don't think Monitor would work today.
cd
jfrancispastirchak said:
Bill Cullen, especially during the later years of Monitor was a regular contributor.
cd637299 said:
Thanks CD & Joey. Felt sure I remembered hearing Bill Cullen on Monitor, but was puzzled by his omission in those website photos.
joeybabe25 said:
I'll be willing to bet that if you asked anyone younger than 70 about it, 99% would say "what?" You'd have to be at least 50 to remember that it existed at all, assuming your parents listened to it.
By the early '70s, Monitor was no longer working. After all, it was canceled in January 1975 and had been an anachronism for years. The big-market affiliates and NBC O&Os were no longer running it. One does not get national advertisers if a show is only aired in Podunk.
And, there's no way it would work today. Except for sports, there is almost no AM radio listening on weekends - even many larger stations run infomercials or "Best of" shows during that time. What makes you think that something like this would work in 2013? Who would bother to advertise on a program that would be listened to mostly by geezers (maybe)? Viagra? Nursing homes? Geritol?
The logical successor to NBC Monitor is NPR's All Things Considered. The show began in 1971, when Monitor was still on the air, and the originators of the show were big fans of that kind of long-form radio. The format is pretty similar with a mix of hard news and feature material. And because it's on non-commercial radio, there's no concern about advertisers. However, as was pointed out, the average age of the audience is older than other NPR shows, so it's obvious why commercial companies haven't revived Monitor.
I certainly remember Monitor. WLW here carried it for many years. Along with all of the hours of programming it had on Saturdays and Sundays, the regular NBC hourly newscasts were also called, "NBC Monitor News On The Hour".
TheBigA said:
As someone who worked for an NPR affiliate there is a concern to cover operating cost through underwriters and other sources.
radiorob2.0 said:
Sure but advertisers and underwriters have different goals. GE buys advertising and it provides underwriting. They come from two different departments. One is "institutional," the other is basic advertising. One is to present an image of the company, the other is built around "spots and dots." The institutional sponsorship folks like long form news programming like All Things Considered. That's why NPR and their affiliates have been replacing music programming with news and information. It's more fundable. And the funders aren't as worried about the demographics of the listeners. In fact, older is actually better for them. Meanwhile at commercial radio stations, a lot of local spots in syndicated talk shows are going unsold. S getting back to the original thread, it's more likely that a show like Monitor will succeed at public radio than at commercial radio.
D
DaveArnold
Guest
Everyone from Don Imus to Gene Rayburn to Mel Allen was on Monitor at one time or the other.
They were called Monitor comunicators.
They were called Monitor comunicators.
C
cd637299
Guest
I really need to record the audio clips onto cassette (ain't I primitive?), and play them for myself at work, during down time.
I did record one saluting Groucho Marx....interesting stuff.
cd
I did record one saluting Groucho Marx....interesting stuff.
cd
cd637299 said:
Much has changed since the day of audio cassettes, like indoor plumbing.
They say that memory is the second thing that fails. I forget what the first one is.
I remember Monitor as a weekend thing... and that something of a similar sound but different title would run on weeknights. I can remember driving to a neighboring town in 1958 for Army Reserve meetings which put me in the night time range of our nearest NBC station and could hear what could not be heard where I lived. What program am I thinking of on weeknights?
And yes, concurring with some earlier comments: I look upon some elements of NPR programming today as a direct descendent of NBC's Monitor. Monitor radio reminded me of the California style "chicken house" homes some people were building in that era. (Shed roofs instead of traditional attics and dormers and all.) A little bit avante garde in style, but not enough to shove it off over in the corner... the way we did jazz music in that era.
I remember Monitor as a weekend thing... and that something of a similar sound but different title would run on weeknights. I can remember driving to a neighboring town in 1958 for Army Reserve meetings which put me in the night time range of our nearest NBC station and could hear what could not be heard where I lived. What program am I thinking of on weeknights?
And yes, concurring with some earlier comments: I look upon some elements of NPR programming today as a direct descendent of NBC's Monitor. Monitor radio reminded me of the California style "chicken house" homes some people were building in that era. (Shed roofs instead of traditional attics and dormers and all.) A little bit avante garde in style, but not enough to shove it off over in the corner... the way we did jazz music in that era.
This was also the last vestage of the network radio system that existed in the 30s and 40s. Entertainment left the radio networks in the 50s for TV. But the news divisions were owned by the radio networks, so they continued to provide national news programming. NBC, CBS, and Mutual had long form nightly news casts. By the 70s, the radio networks couldn't get their long form news programming on stations. The next step was the launch of talk programming: NBC TalkNet in 1981, for example.
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Billy Graham Crusade?
jfrancispastirchak said:
Cute, cute, cute. The little town where I drove to the Reserve meetings may have needed a crusade, but that is another story.
No, during the week circa 1960 NBC ran during the evening hours something similar to Monitor, something similar to some of what we expect from NPR these days, and they called it "Nightline" or something like that, but it had some of the chirps and beeps of Monitor and it had little short talk segments that demonstrated a bit of human intellect. What did we call those things back then... "actualities"?
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