In the 1950s, it could not even be suggested on television that characters in shows were having sex or even might have sex. When the “Dick Van Dyke” TV show debuted in 1961, the characters of Rob and Laura Petrie still slept in separate beds. But, by the 1970s, soap opera’s left little to the imagination as to who was in bed and what they were doing.
In the 1960s you would have never heard someone on Radio say “that sucks” because at the time, a common useage of the word was reserved primarily for a phrase involving a sex act. But, by the 1970s, the phrase "that sucks eggs" emerged and later in the 1980s evolved into the more common "that sucks”. Today the word goes by in radio conversation generally unnoticed. It may seem silly tracing such things but the evolution of words and their useage is at the crux of this matter.
The word “bitch” was still not commonly used on radio until Elton John’s “The Bitch Is Back” became a top hit on Radio in 1974. In the 1980s, the word “ass” began to find it’s way onto the radio. I remember the first time I heard “Big Ass Country” as a station slogan. I was amazed because it was still pretty risque for the time.
The late 1980s brought us Howard Stern and Stern wannabes who again, pushed the line further. The Radio personality “Greaseman” told risque and ribald stories to an eager audience. In the 1990s “Don and Mike” began to use language in their show not heard before on a regular basis like “g-ddamn it”. On and on....words, descriptions, stories, content, deejays, shock-jocks, naked women, orgasms on-the-air - you name it, Radio tries to do it.
When WNEW-FM’s Opie & Anthony were taken off-the-air in August of 2002 for the sex stunt in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, it seems a line was finally drawn in the sand. But, it wasn’t the Opie & Anthony listeners who were necessarily offended. Rather, it was the people not listening who were. So, the question must be raised: do these people have a right to dictate the programming of a show or station they would never listen to?
Over the past 100 years, the technology of Radio has not really changed. Yet, as a society we have. Our mores have morphed and our institutions have been challenged. Would anyone argue we should only be permitted to hear material and content that was acceptable on the radio in1920?
The use of words and content in our electronic media have historically changed over time. Today, some radio shows and TV programs regularly use words, phrases and discuss content that would have never been acceptable in the past. The status of our media cannot be defined by what they once were but, rather how they now function.
There is also the business aspect to this discussion. Today, competition among radio stations and against other media for advertising dollars is so intense, it has splintered the medium into offering highly defined slivers of programming. There are no more mass appeal radio stations.
The programming on a radio station is a product and you can be assured that the marketplace will always dictate which products survive and which ones don’t. Left to its own devices, if a radio station programs in such a way that it annoys more people than it attracts, it will not make money and will eventually be forced to change simply because of economics.
And, ironically, even though Radio “broad”casts, the programming has evolved into what I think is really more “narrow”casting.
To not understand this is to not understand how Radio functions in modern society.
