Sales and service
Returning to the vague subject of radio and culture from a different angle, which may be more relevant.

Profit vs share value. With corporations that sell a physical product, the change is easy to define. Companies that seek a profit want to sell a product that SATISFIES the customer, and they also want to have a customer class that can afford to BUY the product. So they want employees, and they PAY employees. PAY FOR VALUE in both directions.

Companies that seek Share Value don't need employees or products or customers. Share Value rises to infinity when all employees are gone and all customers are dead.

This change happened in most industries in the '80s, and it ALSO happened in radio at the same time.

Rush brought in the Share Value mode aka Silicon Valley mode. He claimed falsely that he had no employees, and he made it clear that the listener was the PRODUCT, not the buyer. Listeners existed to provide calls that he could ROAST or SMASH or DESTROY.

Profit-based companies focus on SERVICE. They want live and solvent customers who return to buy more of the product, so they want to be sure the product satisfies the customers.

The Philco slogan said it all. Sell merchandise that doesn't come back to customers who do come back. This was an internal slogan, not a fake advertising phrase.



Service in broadcasting was harder to pin down because the product was abstract entertainment, not cars or appliances or soap. Nevertheless, many stations and programs provided specific services and opportunities to participate. The FCC demanded real evidence of real service before renewing licenses, so this was good business AND legally required.

The most common service was local daytime women's programs, which acted as an exchange for recipes and household 'hacks'.

Several syndicated or national programs provided specific services, either steadily or occasionally.

Examples I've noticed:

Dick Tracy was all about participation and learning. Young listeners were organized into clubs and invited to help solve this week's case, using the 'secret' codes and methods provided in the 'secret' manual.

An odd west coast program called In the Crimelight was similar in some ways to Strange As It Seems, focused strictly on crimes. Each episode discussed a specific historical case or a type of crime. At the end of each episode the host, a retired cop, offered to help or advise listeners with crime-related problems. He gave his address and promised to answer every letter in a helpful way, whether he could solve the problem or not.

At the end of one 1945 episode of It Pays to be Ignorant, Lulu McConnell, who posed as a drunken Irish barfly, dropped out of character and sweetly invited lonely soldiers to write to her.

We don't know what happened to those invited letters, but we know for sure that they weren't simply Product. The Crimelight host never used the info in the letters, and Lulu didn't mock the writers in other episodes.

We could use a little more sweetness and a WHOLE FUCKING LOT LESS mockery and arrogance and condescension.

Labels: Alternate universe, defensible thymes, defensible times, the broken circle

  ¶ 12:45 AM