Just an FYI, I've never claimed to be "more knowledgeable" than anyone. It's been my experience that giving my credentials won't mean anything to people like you. You're going to believe what you want to believe regardless of my credentials.
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VOA To Do Propaganda?
- Thread starter TheBigA
- Start date
Just an FYI, I've never claimed to be "more knowledgeable" than anyone. It's been my experience that giving my credentials won't mean anything to people like you. You're going to believe what you want to believe regardless of my credentials.
A
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THE online dictionary, or AN online dictionary? The one I used, which I provided a link for, listed the definition I copied as first. Out of the four online dictionaries I looked at, most of them included the definition I posted. Even the one you posted included "often false or exaggerated", not "always false or exaggerated.
A
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And who is "us"? Are you referring to all the people you are in agreement with? Would you accept without challenge something that most of us consider to be true if the "us" referred to were people you don't agree with?
www.merriam-webster.com/ is my favorite on-line dictionary. There are times when I am having conversation with some bone-headed doodle-bug living under a sage brush bush in Texas when I will go to a couple more to make sure I have the full breadth and scope of the language.
Same way I prepare to teach a Sunday School lesson. I like to have four different translations (minimum) in front of me to compare. When they are all in lock-step, I figure we can "go to press". When when I find variations among them, I know it's time to dig deeper.
I don't quite understand how your head is bolted on. David Eduardo, TheBigA and I have spent a lot of time in the trenches of life. The other two got to spend more of their lives in the world or radio, but in addition to my radio years, I bring to the table things you can only learn if you worked with crop dusters, nursing home administrators, lobbied your state legislature, operated the busiest service station in all of Indiana for the brand that franchised me, programmed not only PCs but big heavy iron COBOL machines and medium duty RPG machines, worked in Big Box Retail, worked on the Lean Process team of a national company, and raised three delightful kids, one of who will turn the dictionary of your choice inside-out any day of the week.
What is your problem? Mr. Eduardo, TheBigA and I enjoy participating in a good 'word festival' but we always assume we are in the same room with people of intelligence and curiosity and good manners. And when you get the best of us on a topic, when you catch us making a mistake, we will own up to it, shake your hand for your efforts, and we move on with the discussion or the next topic.
By the way: I just typed in "obnoxious as hell" in the on-line dictionary.... and your picture popped up!
I think it is time for you to have a good conversation with yourself. Do you want to have intelligent discussion about radio here in the forums,.... or do you just want to see if you can irritate people.
A
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As have I.
Perhaps once or twice either of those two did actually own up to making a mistake, we'd all see what my reaction would be.
I don't much care if people choose to be irritated or not. That's their decision, not mine. If "intelligent discussion" means nothing but agreeing with conventional wisdom, or idle chit-chat, I've never been much for such time wasting.
I believe radio used to be an entertaining and informative mass communications media. I believe that those who run the industry have turned it into a boring, vanilla waste of bandwidth. I believe those who run the industry "by the numbers" as nothing but a cash cow have ruined it. I believe that radio can be turned around and once again can be a mass communications media worth listening to, but not as long as those with a strong vested interest in maintaining the status quo continue to defend their practices that turned an art form into a "vast wasteland" that panders to the lowest common denominators.
I believe that there are profits to be made by restoring radio to a position of importance in mass communication. I recognize that commercial radio, as it is run today, is doing so well that most stations have to resort to voice-tracking and automation to remain profitable. Talk format stations have become nothing but conduits for syndicated, cookie-cutter airtime filler. If I appear less than happy with the people who defend turning broadcast radio into boring swill, it's because they have turned broadcast radio into boring swill.
When someone brags about how instrumental he was into making broadcast radio the mind-numbingly boring torture that it is today, I am not impressed by how long he has been engaged in that process. If the ice cream industry was run by the people who run radio today, Baskin-Robbins would have one flavor. If the automobile industry were run by the people who run radio today, we'd be back to any color we want, so long as it's black.
Yes, I'm a listener. I'm one of the people that broadcast radio tries to get to tune in so that they can rent my ears out to advertisers. I used to enjoy listening to the radio. I wish I could continue to do so, but what made radio worth listening to has been squeezed out by bean-counters. If that attitude offends anyone, I'm sorry that they are offended. But that doesn't mean I'm going to change my mind.
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The reason why the phrase "conventional wisdom" exists is that in many cases tried and proven techniques just work.
For any of us to break out of the mold of proven success formulae, we need to see some evidence that shows that the risk is appropriate for the potential for gain. And risk, with successful radio stations, is different than the "risk" needed to sell one's house to create the next big app.
The reason why we have radio and TV ratings done the way they are is because advertisers like them. You criticize ratings, but don't offer suggestions on how they might better be done.
The reason we do music tests is because we have experience whereby tested stations do better than untested ones. You are critical of music testing, but again offer no suggestions or enhancements.
We have shorter playlists than you and your cohorts would enjoy, yet there is conclusive proof now and in the recent past that longer lists reduce the perception of variety and reduce TSL. You have, other than your own feelings, not suggested anything that is verifiable that makes us change our thinking.
And so it goes through everything from the future of AM to the usage of smartphones. And that is why you are irritating and appear to be irrational at times: you produce no concrete ideas, and mostly just look for loose nouns, adjectives and other objects to hurl at others.
"Most of us" = "everyone but you"
Keep in mind that the "vast wasteland" speech was 50 years ago. Personally, I feel no guilt for what radio is today. Radio was founded by salesmen, and that really hasn't changed. Marconi wasn't looking to educate the world. He wanted to make money. I'd love to turn radio into a tool to educate and inform, but as hard as I've tried, I can't find a way to pay for it. That always becomes the brick wall. There is no shortage of people with high ideals. But when the talk turns to paying for it, no one knows what to do. I spent some time advising a group of LPFM staffers, and that was the never-ending problem. Radio is a wonderful hobby. It's a far more pedestrian occupation. If you can show me the way to turn the hobby into an occupation, I'm all ears.
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FredLeonard
Guest
BigA: Actually, radio was founded by techies - scientists and engineers - just like the media that have come along since. Marconi wasz an electrical engineer. Don't assume he was just in it for the money (again, like today's techies). Salesmen came later. Even later came Wall Street bean counter types, who are with us today.
The "vast wasteland" speech was about TV, not radio. Clearly, Newton Minow didn't realize when the medium was well off. Newt is neither techie, salesman or bean counter. Even worse. He's a lawyer.
The "vast wasteland" speech was about TV, not radio. Clearly, Newton Minow didn't realize when the medium was well off. Newt is neither techie, salesman or bean counter. Even worse. He's a lawyer.
Fun fact. Mussolini was the best man at Marconi's wedding.
Of course he was in it for the money.
Of course he was in it for the money.
Depends on what you mean by "founded." Lots of products we use every day were invented by techies. But it took marketers and salesmen to make them popular. That's what happened to radio. They're the ones who founded radio companies. By 1922, it was no longer in the hands of the techies and hobbyists. The government got involved and moved the amateurs (we call them ham radio) to their own band, so the Commerce Department, run by Herbert Hoover, could take over radio. By the mid-20s radio had become nationalized with radio networks pumping out shows owned by sponsors. Wall Street bean counter types led to the founding of NBC in 1926. So yes, without scientists and engineers, radio would not have been invented. But they all worked for profit making companies like GE, Westinghouse, and RCA. That's the rest of the story. Yes Marconi was an inventor who was bought out by GE, like his buddy Tom Edison.
Yes I know. I interviewed Newt about the speech. But radio wasn't much better. By the way, he was right. At the time both TV and radio had become horribly commercialized. His speech led to the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 and something we now call Public Broadcasting.
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Marconi developed a method to transmit messages wirelessly. The development of radio as a way of sending entertainment and news from one to many came much later. And it was first developed in the pre-W.W. I years by hobbyists. After the war, the potential for radio broadcasting was visualized, and it was not to be some amateurs who signed on for an hour with a piano piece, a poem and a soprano.
The stage of development that created radio stations with a varied program schedule was the stage when businesses like Westinghous and the May Grain Company discovered they could sell radios and seeds by offering more and better programs. It was about money.
The Internet was developed out of scientific, military and government sectors. That does not mean that today's Internet is a weapon.
The technology of radio was invented by experimenters. They likely had no idea what the practical applications would be decades later. That development was motivated by profits.
Newton Minnow, whether a lawyer or not, was both an elitist and a bureaucrat. Time has revealed that he was not a visionary, either.
A
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The fact that a phrase entered into the lexicon as an apt figure-of-speech for one thing at one time the first time that it was used doesn't negate its appropriateness or meaning in a different context. Broadcast radio today is a wasteland. Broadcast radio today is vast. Therefore, broadcast radio today is a vast wasteland. The fact that there were other wastelands in the past that were vast, including one famously referred to half a century ago, doesn't mean that there aren't other vast wastelands.
Once again, it depends. Minnow's idea was that we should take the profit motive out of broadcasting. Then programming would be created for the good of the people. So who should then pay for it? His answer was the American public through the federal income tax. The problem is that PT Barnum was right. So public broadcasting creates educational programming, that's very artistic and creative, built around the best and the brightest, and we can see how popular those shows are. There are people today who feel the same approach should be used for serious journalism and other cultural institutions. I recommend the book "Art Inc." by Bill Ivey. The reality is if we want commercial enterprise to pay for our entertainment, it will always be aimed at the lowest common denominator.
Replying to several others...Really, it seems to me David Sarnoff, more than Marconi, was responsible for what became radio. Basing his idea on the successful experiments of others, he proposed the development of a "Radio Music Box" to Marconi, who rejected it as he was interested only in radio telegraphy. Several years later, now at RCA, he suggested the same idea successfully. RCA spawned NBC, for business reasons yes, but also to make sure people buying RCA sets would have something to listen to. Other set makers like Westinghouse and Crosley also started stations that still exist today; while many 1920's radio stations had the life expectancy of Mayflies.
Public TV has been something of a boon commercially to the networks, absorbing the low-rated "cultural" or "image" programming they no longer carry, so they can concentrate on getting ratings on lowest-denominator shows. It may be notable that such radio pioneers as Sarnoff and William Paley were foreign-born or first-generation sons of European Jewish immigrants in a highly prejudiced era; and wished to be seen as patrons of the arts rather than businessmen "in it for a buck," though they certainly succeeded at both. How else to explain Sarnoff giving Arturo Toscanini a virtual blank check to create an NBC Symphony Orchestra? You know the old saying about doing well by doing good.
Commercial TV has also virtually conceded children's programming to public TV, who have performed admirably. (Where did "Captain Kangaroo" go when CBS dropped him after decades? You got it.) Networks and stations no longer even want to be bothered with it; why run commercials trying to sell corn flakes to Junior when you can sell cars to Daddy instead? A friend who worked in promotion for a Fox TV affiliate in New York state told me they celebrated when Fox dumped their after-school weekday cartoon block, because now they could run talk shows and "courtroom" shows and feed what they considered a far more valuable audience into their early news.
Public TV has been something of a boon commercially to the networks, absorbing the low-rated "cultural" or "image" programming they no longer carry, so they can concentrate on getting ratings on lowest-denominator shows. It may be notable that such radio pioneers as Sarnoff and William Paley were foreign-born or first-generation sons of European Jewish immigrants in a highly prejudiced era; and wished to be seen as patrons of the arts rather than businessmen "in it for a buck," though they certainly succeeded at both. How else to explain Sarnoff giving Arturo Toscanini a virtual blank check to create an NBC Symphony Orchestra? You know the old saying about doing well by doing good.
Commercial TV has also virtually conceded children's programming to public TV, who have performed admirably. (Where did "Captain Kangaroo" go when CBS dropped him after decades? You got it.) Networks and stations no longer even want to be bothered with it; why run commercials trying to sell corn flakes to Junior when you can sell cars to Daddy instead? A friend who worked in promotion for a Fox TV affiliate in New York state told me they celebrated when Fox dumped their after-school weekday cartoon block, because now they could run talk shows and "courtroom" shows and feed what they considered a far more valuable audience into their early news.
Not bad...
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FredLeonard
Guest
Public television is loaded with what, for all practical purposes, are infomercial - especially during pledge periods (that's in addition to the pledge pitches, themselves). Just because there's no call to action in underwriting announcements, doesn't mean public television is less revenue oriented that commercial television. Public television is just as much controlled by "sponsors." Keep in mind the commercial cable channels filled with the same types of "public service" programming as public television, and commercially viable.
David Sarnoff was what we'd now call a station engineer and wireless telegraph operation. He was also a nasty, reprehensible human being.
David Sarnoff was what we'd now call a station engineer and wireless telegraph operation. He was also a nasty, reprehensible human being.
If you mean its members, you may be right. Those pledge shows are completely designed to appeal to attracting donations. But I will tell you that the companies that fund PBS don't get involved in the programming. The funding process and the program creation process are two very separate things. The firewall between the two is very thick.
By the way, the original intent, as stated in the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, was to have no corporate sponsorships. But that ended in 1983. Today, Pacifica Radio still operates with that philosophy, and they're in deep financial trouble, for many reasons besides the policy. The VOA is basically the only broadcasting operation that holds true to the 1967 goal.
Depends on what you mean by "commercially viable." Both A&E and Bravo were begun as channels designed to provide programming similar to PBS. Both have replaced that programming with reality shows. So obviously it wasn't "commercially viable." Or maybe you can say they found something that was MORE viable. I don't see symphony orchestras or opera on cable anymore. I don't see folk music or Austin City Limits. Even the cable music channels have become vehicles for reality TV.
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