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Are the A.M. Networks Doomed?
There was a time when, on any given evening, 75 percent of America’s radios were turned to prime-time programming from the three major A.M. radio networks. As children in the ’70s, we joined our family around the crackling receiver to listen to comedies like Archie Bunker’s Family and Jack Tripper, Bachelor, and dramas like John Quincy, M.E. and Charlie and His Lady Agents Provocateur.
But today, our media landscape is fractured. Not only has the rise of the international teletypewriter network depleted the ranks of the attuned radio listener, but the F.M. band and a growing variety of Sputnik bands have proven themselves as strong challengers for the ears of our nation.
Sure, we’re about to enter a glorious span in which many programs will be returning from the inactivity of the Writers’ Strike. But in two months, these programs will be gone once again, with the A.M. networks continuing their ridiculous tradition of not programming new material in the summertime.
Listeners have used the breaks in the traditional A.M. radio season to instead discover alternative programming that suits their interests. On the F.M. band you can find such broadcasters as American Movietone, which has taken the nation by storm with its two groundbreaking hits, the shocking drama The Dying Chemistry Professor and the documentary series Mad Men. The Fox X-Band station has gained a following with its series Tarnished Badge, The Irish Travellers, and Damaged Female Lawyer. And I’m sure you’re familiar with the many programs on the Scientifiction Band, since many of my Radeeo colleagues simply can’t stop writing about the likes of Battleship Galaxy-1 and Space Voyage!
To add insult to injury, now comes the rise of the premium Sputnik radio programs. Long the standard-bearer, Home Box Office has aired a string of racy hits, including Lunatic Mobster, Old Maids in Manhattan, Larry the Disconsolate Jew, True Tales of Baltimore, and Deadwood Western Theater. Though recent programs such as Surfing With Jesus and Dr. Freud’s Psychotherapy Weekday have fallen flat, the HBO network is a force to be reckoned with. And it’s been joined by the Show Time Network, led by buzz-worthy programs Miami Blood Spatter and Reefer Madness: The Radio Series.
With all these opportunities for entertainment programming, where does that leave the traditional A.M. networks? We fear that should they not change their methodology, we will be left with much less of the traditional comedy and drama we have come to expect to fill our houses with sound. Instead, we’ll be left with the more shrill call of the game-show program and the new generation of “realism programs.” Already, the Columbia Broadcast System fills entire weeks of its summer schedule with My Big Brother!, perhaps the laziest program in the history of radio, seeing as how it consists of nothing but live audio emanating from a house on the Columbia studio lot.
If the A.M. networks think that live audio of a My Big Brother contestant snoring or using the facilities is going to save them from their F.M. and Sputnik competition, they are doomed to go the way of the penny dreadful, the powdered wig, and Hitler.