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jackalopeboi's review against another edition
informative
relaxing
slow-paced
4.0
Informative read on the history of radio in the United States. Author has a slight anti-government bias, but then again, look at the title.
manwithanagenda's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
3.0
This book did pretty well to start, but when the history of radio got more fractured and contested in the late 70s to the late 90s (when the book ends) Walker's sources start to become highly suspect or fall through. I suppose he was trying to keep the history personal by zeroing in on select stations and their battles with Washington and big radio, but the end result was a lot of pages covering tempests-in-teapots. When writing local or "small" histories the most important thing to do to keep a non-local's interest (and prove historical worth) is to connect the event with broader national and international trends. The squabbles surrounding late-period Pacifica and the stories of small stations, illegal and legitimate alike, were probably important for those involved but I couldn't buy into the argument that they were anything but local struggles.
Walker failed in that respect, but the early chapters provided a lot of insight into how radio (and the networks) came to be and the people who fought to preserve a narrow slice of the band for everybody. In these older (and better documented) struggles Walker's biases are an asset that allows the reader to see how long the battle for a "free" radio was and how narrowly it avoided being completely sold away.
Also, as a former station manager I rued not having a copy of this book on hand when I was struggling to save my college's radio station. Walker goes into what works and doesn't work in free-form radio programming and emphasizes the importance of having a radio be open and free, but not complete anarchy. For a radio station to survive without onerous oversight or funding from outside is to provide something to the community and involved listeners. I could have saved myself a lot of head-butting and whispers of fascism if I had just handed some highlighted chapters of this book to certain DJs instead of trying to explain that plugging in your iPod and playing only your favorite songs at odd hours is not serving anybody but yourself.
The book has its problems, but if you are or were or want to be involved in radio on any scale this book has one of the better overviews and explanations of its history up to the 1970s that I've read. Skim the later chapters though, save yourself the trouble of rolling your eyes.
Walker failed in that respect, but the early chapters provided a lot of insight into how radio (and the networks) came to be and the people who fought to preserve a narrow slice of the band for everybody. In these older (and better documented) struggles Walker's biases are an asset that allows the reader to see how long the battle for a "free" radio was and how narrowly it avoided being completely sold away.
Also, as a former station manager I rued not having a copy of this book on hand when I was struggling to save my college's radio station. Walker goes into what works and doesn't work in free-form radio programming and emphasizes the importance of having a radio be open and free, but not complete anarchy. For a radio station to survive without onerous oversight or funding from outside is to provide something to the community and involved listeners. I could have saved myself a lot of head-butting and whispers of fascism if I had just handed some highlighted chapters of this book to certain DJs instead of trying to explain that plugging in your iPod and playing only your favorite songs at odd hours is not serving anybody but yourself.
The book has its problems, but if you are or were or want to be involved in radio on any scale this book has one of the better overviews and explanations of its history up to the 1970s that I've read. Skim the later chapters though, save yourself the trouble of rolling your eyes.
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