On 24 May 2005 07:20:50 GMT, "fredtv" wrote:


Remember when top 40 stations had talented and clever news people who
actually crafted listenable newscasts? They were fun on slow news days and
credible when the public need arose. Public service was also part of the
format-- not a block of shows hidden on the schedule.

Fred Cantu
Austin, TX


In the Tampa area, during the 50's, 60's and70's.. News was frequently an
afterthought. Rip and Read was the norm. (And most of the news budget went
for the TTY, telco, and service, rather than the humans doing the actual
reading. A -few- stations had a real news team, but it -all- depended on how
profitable they were. As profitability suffered, news was the first to go.

Public Service? The stations that were on 24x7 simply put their "What's
happening in the schools" programs on at 3 am. They put on transcriptions
supplied by the government ("Forests today!", "Army Recruiting" and so on) and
occasionally programs provided by the teacher's unions. Did they ever identify
the propaganda pieces as such, or the suppliers of them? No..

They were -boring- and total wastes of time. How much did they put into
those shows? Nothing. No budget.. Just get a talking head to come into the
station one afternoon and have them talk about how great things were. Get the
Sheriff's spokesman? Good. Get the head of the school board. More boredom.

At the TV stations, the "public service" was aired either late at night, or
early on Sunday mornings. Again, the budget for those shows was very
limited... Get a news guy to sit in one chair on a empty set in the studio,
and some local politician to sit in the other set... Have 2 cameras with
static shots of the two folk, and let the tape spool. No one listened to them
at 5 am on Sundays.

The only exception to that was when the news director did a "Sky is falling"
show about energy that aired in prime time. "We will be totally out of oil by
1995!" (this was in 82 or there abouts.. ) - At the rate we are going, by
1995, there won't be any cars moving. We have to buy econoboxes that get 50
mpg if we want anything available to make plastic with." "We have to have mass
transit that runs on something other than oil so that our economy can
survive." .... Like the Tampa Bay tourist economy would survive on coal
burning airplanes carrying tourists into town?

Well, Joe is long dead.. The folk he interviewed from the Sierra Club are long
dead. (They were in their 70's then).. and the show got NO ratings at all.
But -THAT- was the limit of "public service" on the air in the 70's and 80's..