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I know several of you run old time radio show reruns. Will this sort of thing affect your future programming?
“Wisconsin Public Radio is dropping its longtime weekend broadcasts of old-time radio shows from the 1930s to the 1960s, citing an inability to find shows without offensive content.
The dramas and comedies from what’s often called the “Golden Age of Radio” have aired for decades on Saturday and Sunday evenings on WPR’s Ideas Network, including KUWS (91.3 FM) in Superior and WUWS (90.9 FM) in Ashland. “Old Time Radio Drama” will air for the last time on June 14.
The shows originally aired on major commercial radio networks and are now in the public domain. WPR Director Mike Crane said many of the programs from that era contain racist and sexist content.
“Despite significant effort over the years, it has been nearly impossible to find historic programs without offensive and outdated content. And, ultimately, these programs don’t represent the values of WPR and The Ideas Network’s focus on public service through news and information,” Crane said in a news release.
Norman Gilliland, who hosts “Old Time Radio Drama,” will continue at WPR as a host for Classical music programming, “Chapter A Day,” and “University of the Air.”
The Ideas Network will replace old time radio with PRX Remix, a magazine show featuring highlights from podcasts and documentaries. PRX Remix will air weekends at 8 p.m. beginning Saturday, June 20.”
TIB
CHML from Hamilton here in Ontario still runs them from 10pm till 1am with original commercials too even with a Camels commercial that says doctors of all specialties recommend Camels to their patients and smokers that smoked Camels reported their throats felt much better! Seems to be doing OK in this day and age.
They are all from the 1930s 40s and 50s….the original Gunsmoke series before it became a TV show, Detective stories etc.
If you can get it at night where you are try listening. The alltime best is the CBS radio mystery theater and all of them are in full on youtube and I listen to one every night. They are all like radio drama versions of the twighlight zone.
They are still going strong here. Zoomer radio also runs them for just one hour from 10PM to 11PM each day. Weekdays only I think.
Sorry to hear that this network is ending them.
I like the ones where Lucille Ball did radio comedies before her Lucy show on TV.I’ve answered this in the most recent post to The Artisan Radio Blog.
The short answer is that anything written in the past is a product of the then current attitudes and mores. You can still enjoy the work of art, while recognizing that. Otherwise, you’d never read classical literature, listen to an opera, watch a black & white movie, or even an 80s or 90s TV show.
Outright banning of all OTR is just plain censorship in the guise of political correctness. It’s easy to do, it makes you sound compassionate, and doesn’t cost you potential sponsors as would condemning Confederate monuments, or sports team nick names.
@ Artisan…maybe off topic but you mentioned your blog which I just saw for the first time.
Is there a provision to comment on any blogs?There’s so many old radio shows like the detective ones, mysteries, original Gunsmoke series, Lucille Ball comedies before the I love Lucy TV show that have nothing offensive in it.
I think that it’s excessive to just cease all broadcasting of the shows and there may be other factors here…new program director who has other ideas, not enough audience to attract advertisers and an excuse had to be given.
As for the question asked…would it affect me doing it on my hobby station….absolutely not, I’m not doing that but if I was, no wouldn’t affect me. I also don’t know what was considered “offensive”.Mark, blogs are inherently one way communication, but there is contact information on the home page of the website. Just be sure to read the terms and conditions if you’re going to use it.
I don’t participate much in the Forums any more for a variety of reasons, one being intellectual property ownership. Forums want to own everything posted, and I’ve seen that misused elsewhere recently.
It’s why I answered the OTR question in the manner that I did. It was first posted on my blog, where there is no ownership question, and then summarized with permission of the author (i.e., myself) here.
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