RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

From the еагlу 1980s, many stations put themselves forward as local, hy such simple expedients as announcing the name of the city in which they were located and to which they broadcast, and/or by incorporating the city"s name or initials in their call letters (e.g. WNYC in New YorK City) or station names (e.g. Poste Parisienne ) . Stations also often broadcast from locally famous hotels , dance halls or vaudeville and vanety theaters. The more prosperous stations even had remote broadcast trucks to travel around the city for live broadcasts , with the station's name emblazoned on the side of the trucK . At that time , there were no licensing conditions that reguired station ađministrators or owners to taKe into account whatever it was that made their communities communities , much less reguired them to serve the many audiences that might be there . Few members of governments or , for that rinatter, broadcasters themselves , though in terms of serving diverse publics . When one did so , as dld Sir John in Great Britain and Hans Bredow in Germany, it was fЗг more apt to be in terms of national life . And because broadcasting became so much a national medium of communication during the 19 30s, often with one broadcast service to cover the entire nation , there was no need to set up the sort of specialized regulatory адепсу for broadcasting that only the United States had at the time . Elsewhere , such regulation as seemed necessary was done by the Ministry of Post Sand Telecommunications or its eguivalent, and most of the rdgulatory emphasis was on the technical aspects of broadcasting . For a brief, penod in the mid 19305, all private radio stations in France were reguired to have local councils made up of listeners , and in a few nations such as Great Britain there were advisory councils composed of citizens chosen by the broadcasters, but by and large it was up to station tnanagement to decide which listeners to serve and how . Doubtless no one woulđ insist that ALL elements withm a community be served , but the obligation to serve a good many of them might be e*pected to increase if each locale were to have only one station . And if some locales might be served by several stations , there might be the expectation of a đivision of labor among the stations , so that most of them wouldn't enđ up serving the same rather restrlcted audiences . But even the U ,s . Federal Communications Commission placed no such restrictions upon local radio llcensees; mstead , they were to furmsh a 'promise' of their mtent to serve tne commumty ,m which they wished tcr broađcast, and , if the license was granted , they would appear at license renewal time to narrate the manner in which they hađ fulfilled their promises . Whether station programmmg practices duplicated each other or not or left some segments of the commumty neglected , really diđn't

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