WCBS Newsradio 880 to disappear
One of the strange pleasures of driving late at night in downstate Illinois is pulling in WCBS 880 or WINS 1010. I always like hearing about traffic and weather from a distant land.
TV as radio or children’s game
Listening or playing Guess Who?
“Leftist broadcasters” (Project 2025)
It’s extraordinarily dishonest to assert that NPR and PBS are noneducational or virtually noneducational, unless of course you’ve already restricted “educational” to programming for the very young. So Sesame Street is educational, but All Things Considered, American Masters, Finding Your Roots, and Frontline are not.
Great Lives: Terry Hall
I’ve been following Great Lives for more than three years. This episode is one of the best I’ve heard.
Backstayges and Roys
I finally realized what the group trips of Succession remind me of: the group trips of Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife, the Bob and Ray radio-serial spoof.
Another imaginary radio show
Soup’s On: On Soup is all about soup: making it, serving it, eating it, storing leftovers in the fridge or freezer, though there might not be any leftovers considering how great soup is.
TCM world
“I live in TCM world”: Charlie Watts, on his taste in clothes. From a Desert Island Discs episode.
Jean who?
Shepherd.
Tuck Points
“This week on Tuck Points: well-fitted fitted sheets, the foundation of good sleep.”
Blanket Statements
“After the break, we’ll be talking about plaid. Is it really warmer?”
Stemside
“Coming up on Stemside: tomato sandwiches. Are they really as good as people say?”
Phil Schapp (1951–2021)
Gum nonsense
From “The Face to Forget,” an episode of the radio program The Adventures of Philip Marlowe (June 14, 1950). These three spots almost send me off to buy gum.
“Anthony! Anthony!”
I remember “Anthony! Anthony!” not so much from the commercial as from Bob and Ray’s radio repurposing of it.
Cousin Brucie returns
This man was on the radio when I was barely sentient. As they say these days, Wut ?
TV as radio
From Tight Spot (dir. Phil Karlson, 1955), spoken by prison inmate Sherry Conley (Ginger Rogers): “Television should be so good that when you close your eyes it sounds like a radio.”
Radio stars
A headline from today’s New York Times: “Trump Wanted a Radio Show, But Deferred to Rush Limbaugh.”
“89.9, Manahawkin”
A lonely tower standing at the edge of a field in some tiny village.
Recently updated
A conversation between Sarah Milov and the historians who borrowed her work without attribution for a radio broadcast.
Credit where it’s due
Two historians — male, tenured — talked on WBUR’s Here and Now about the politics of tobacco. In doing so, they relied, exclusively, it seems, on a forthcoming book by another historian — female, untenured. She and her book were never acknowledged.
Morning Edition as madeleine
Robinson Meyer writes about the Morning Edition theme music, old and new: “Five months ago, I happened to find the Morning Edition theme on YouTube, and as the hi-hat glimmered and the jazz guitar began, I was surprised to find myself transported. Suddenly, I was sitting in the back of my dad’s Mazda sedan, being driven to elementary school, listening to the NPR sports commentator Frank Deford, the car smelling of seat leather and something acrid that I couldn’t place.”
Ellington on the air, 1932
From Newark’s WBGO-FM: an eight-minute fragment from a 1932 live radio broadcast of Duke Ellington and His Orchestra. It’s the earliest known recording of the Ellington band on the air.
The Write Stuff
From BBC Radio 4, The Write Stuff, “the radio panel game of literary correctness.”
College radio
The life and death of a great college station.
Dan Ingram (1934–2018)
“A quick-thinking, somewhat bawdy jester who mocked songs, singers, sponsors and the weather at WABC-AM.”
Recently updated
A comment from Anton Schwartz notes the death of Alan Bleviss.
Close the door
Fire safety.
Five radios
I remember my first transistor radio, a Zenith with a leather case and an earphone that looked like a hearing aid.
Recently updated
Elaine Fine on the airwaves.
Elaine Fine on the airwaves
Music of Our Mothers, a weekly radio show devoted to classical music written by women, will air a recording of Elaine’s More Greek Myths.