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What was talk radio like in the days before Rush Limbaugh ?? Of course I can remember TalkNet ( Bruce Williams and others ) and Larry King however this afternoon I was reading elsewhere online that talk radio had been around as far back as the 1940s. Were the hosts more friendly towards the callers even if the caller had disagreed with the host ?? Less wacky callers ?? Was it the same then as it is now ??
The talk shows that I remember listening to back in the day ( talking early 80s ) it seemed they were usually always "open phones" meaning any topic was discussed during the broadcast such as the Charlie Donovan show on Baltimore's WFBR-AM 1300. One caller would talk about President Reagan while the very next caller would be discussing problems with their sex life. I can also remember listening to Boston's WBZ-AM 1030 and their late night talk shows back in those days and for some reason I seem to recall a lot more pop culture was discussed than current social issues especially on the weekends.
Calmer, more sane and less emotional. Where the caller could pick a topic and express their views without being interrupted and talked over. Less one sided.
It wasn't really talk radio, but there used to be a show, "The Rest of the Story" hosted by Paul Harvey. He was a natural story-teller. Mr. Harvey could make the most mundane events sound like once in a lifetime adventures. What a great show!
Even earlier, there was a lot of entertainment on radio. Not just music, but shows, theaters, mysteries, etc.
Somehow Rush Limbaugh and other blowhards got on the air and I can understand why younger people wonder how it came to that.
Yes it was more local and less partisan, and much less popular - usually in AM radio.
The change was due to two things: 1.) The repeal of the FCC's "Fairness Doctrine" in 1987 which required radio stations to include both viewpoints, and 2.) The rise of syndicated radio. That's not a good or bad thing, just different. It shows that there was a market for such a format. Of course now we are going to have 5 pages of threads from the left saying how terrible this is (and the obvious answer would be to just change the station, I never listen to it myself). Now of course there are left-leaning radio stations as well.
It wasn't always political, it includes the rise of the "shock jock" formats such as Howard Stern, sport talk radio, religious radio, etc..
Larry King had a late night talk show on in the late 60's early 70's.
I listened to it while driving the 30 miles to my 3 AM job.
There were some weird people who called. Larry King once said he thought the mental hospital allowed their patients one phone call per month and they all used it to call Larry King.
Larry was a liberal and there were a few callers with a southern drawl who really knew how to get under Larry's skin.
Liberal Larry King was going on and on about you have no right to shoot a thief who breaks into your house at night unless he actually comes to your bedroom to harm you.
Larry said..........." is your TV worth taking someone's life "?
A guy with a southern drawl said.........." Larry, you should be directing your question to the thief and asking him if my TV is worth risking his life over "
Rush and others are a very vocal mouthpiece for the conservative political point of view.
They state their opinion as fact and have a blindly loyal following.
How that differs greatly from Goebbels and the National Socialists I don't know.
The genre as we know it was probably started by the late Bob Grant. He made Limbaugh sound like a liberal pussycat.
Very entertaining if you could resist taking him too seriously. He was usually on WABC in New York and his show was mostly New York centric with lots of bile thrown at Mario Cuomo and David Dinkins. He did not seem to have much of problem with Ed Koch and Pat Moynihan. Needless to say, he despised anyone named Clinton and Obama.
How that differs greatly from Goebbels and the National Socialists I don't know.
If you don't know then you have to go back to your basic high school civics class.
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What was talk radio like in the days before Rush ??
