Home Videos FAQ Meetings Join Radio
Recall
Library Links


This story was published in Radio Recall, the journal of the Metropolitan Washington Old-Time Radio Club, published six times per year.

Click here to return to the index of selected articles.

QUOTABLE QUOTES REGARDING
THE GOLDEN AGE OF BROADCASTING
(From Radio Recall, October 2007)

"There was nothing to compare with the impact of radio. It was immediate. It was real. And it called upon the most powerful tool of all to make it work: the listener's imagination."

Leonard Maltin, The Great American Broadcast (Dutton Books, 1997)

"Radio kneaded our psyches and helped shape our desires, our fantasies, our images of the outside world, our very imaginations. Unlike other major technologies that move us from one place to another, radio worked most powerfully inside our heads, helping us create internal maps of the world and our place in it."

Susan J. Douglas, Listening In (Times Books, Random House, 1999)

“For the vast majority of the citizenry, radio and the programs it carried were synonymous, To enjoy good programming, the typical listener was willing to endure static, transmission interference, commercials, and shows he did not care for... (But) when he fell in love with a program, it was for keeps.”

J. Fred MacDonald, Don’t Touch That Dial (Nelson-Hall, 1979)

"Radio was interactive... people were linked to radio in a passionately personal way. The direct unfiltered sound of the human voice... compelled you to pay attention. There was no visual clutter to distract; the ear was more grounded, as focused as the eye. The ear was all. Hearing was believing."

Gerald Nachman, Raised on Radio (Pantheon Books, 1998)