The Divided Dial: Episode 4 - From The Extreme to The Mainstream

On the Media

WNYC Studios

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4.6 • 8.7K Ratings

🗓️ 6 December 2022

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the 1970s, talk radio was hitting its stride, with hosts and listeners from all political persuasions. But the radio dial was about to change forever. Community needs assessments, requirements to offer public service programs and multiple perspectives, and limits on how many stations a single company could own were all eradicated. Technological and legal changes would consolidate the radio industry exponentially, allowing conservative talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh to take over the airwaves. In this episode, we look at radio’s last four decades to understand how we got to where we are today, and how conservative talk radio came to dominate a medium that once thrived on varied viewpoints.

The Divided Dial is hosted by journalist and Fulbright Fellow Katie Thornton. Her written articles and audio stories have appeared in The Atlantic, 99% Invisible, The Washington Post, BBC, NPR, WNYC, Minnesota Public Radio, The Guardian, Bloomberg’s CityLab, National Geographic, and others. She is a lifelong radio nerd who got her start in media as a teenager, volunteering and working behind the scenes at radio stations for many years. You can follow her work on Instagram or on her website. The Divided Dial was edited by On the Media's executive producer, Katya Rogers. With production support from Max Balton and fact-checking by Tom Colligan, Sona Avakian, and Graham Hacia. Music and sound design by Jared Paul. Jennifer Munson is our technical director. Art by Michael Brennan. With support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey PodCuzzListness, it's Katya Rodgers, EP of On The Media.
0:03.4	This is episode four of the divided dial.
0:06.0	If this is the first one you're coming across,
0:08.3	you're going to want to go back to the beginning of the series to catch up.
0:11.3	Otherwise, there's going to be some stuff that won't make sense.
0:14.5	Enjoy it.
0:30.5	In the early 1980s, the radio dial was a bustling town square.
0:35.0	Voices from across the political and cultural spectrum jostled for airtime,
0:39.3	a leading liberal voice on the air, was Alan Burr.
0:48.2	With his gray, shaggy, mop top, scruffy beard and reading glasses perched on the end of his
0:53.5	nose, Burr looked more like a high school geography teacher than a shock-jock.
0:58.2	But behind the mic, his style was caustic, as he faced off with the bigots who often called
1:14.4	into his show.
1:15.4	But on the evening of June 18, 1984.
1:38.3	Alan Burr was shot and killed by a white supremacist.
2:04.2	His murder, a milestone, on the road to an ever more violent radical right.
2:09.0	And for radio, it heralded the end of an era.
2:19.1	I'm Katie Thornton, and this is the divided dial, a five-part podcast series from On the
2:24.0	Media.
2:25.2	About how one side of the political spectrum came to dominate talk radio.
2:30.1	And how one company is using the airwaves to launch a right-wing media empire.
2:37.6	By the early 80s, the right had staked out their place in the media ecosystem, despite
	...

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