Radio Artists Research Articles

'Entertaining' a New College Athlete Unionization Structure

Between athletes still feeling short-changed despite name, image, and likeness (NIL) compensation and coaches and administrators feeling generally unhappy with the unregulated, “wild west” landscape of NIL, college sports is faced with two competing forces pushing college athletics in two distinctly different directions. There is an obvious solution to all of the strife in college sports: the legal recognition of college athletes as employees and the creation of a formally recognized college athlete labor union, allowing athletes to collectively bargain for a share of media rights revenues and other work conditions, while also allowing the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to collectively bargain for more regulations and restrictions on NIL activity without facing antitrust scrutiny by virtue of the non-statutory labor exemption. There are several unique challenges to organizing a labor union comprised of athletes, including the breadth and variety of their negotiating interests. However, there is a robust union that has been in operation since the 1930s that may provide a baseline framework: the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). In this article, we explore potential frameworks for a college athlete union by using SAG-AFTRA and other major unions as templates. SAG-AFTRA’s unique national-local structure serves as a guide for how to create a robust and effective college athlete union that meets all sides’ interests in reforming college sports.

Sounds of Accompaniment

Sounds of Accompaniment

Prevalence of Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use in Professional Voice Users

Objectives To determine the prevalence and specific modalities of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) by professional voice users (PVUs) for vocal ailments and to examine the PVU's health care utilization. Methods A Canadian national cross-sectional survey was conducted. Surveys were distributed electronically to members of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television, and Radio Artists; the National Association of Teachers of Singing; the Canadian Actors Equity Association; and the Department of Vocal Performance at Western University. Participants were asked about the products/therapies they use to improve vocal health. Frequency of use, health care utilization, and general influencers in treatment choice were also collected. Results Two hundred eighty-eight participants completed the survey. 86% of participants claimed to have taken at least one form of CAM when experiencing voice loss or a negative voice change. Of the respondents, 18% claimed to use products/therapies for vocal health routinely in the absence of vocal ailments. The most common CAMs used were hot drinks with honey and/or lemon, lozenges, and inhaling steam. When vocally ill, PVUs were significantly more likely to use CAMs than any other treatment method. Voice teachers and medical doctors most commonly influenced the choice of the treatment. Conclusion This study illustrated the substantial prevalence of CAMs in the PVU community. Understanding the utilization of CAMs can help clinicians navigate treatment strategies for this patient population.

Pilot Evaluation of Community-Based Vocal Health Screenings

Community-based health fairs can help identify at-risk populations, improve health literacy, and facilitate access to medical services. No community-based screenings specifically targeting vocal health were identified in the literature. The purpose of this study is to compare the results of community-based vocal health screenings across two populations: a group of community members with unknown risk of voice problems, and a group of actors belonging to a profession with a known increased risk of voice problems. Vocal health screenings were conducted at two free, community-based health fair events in the Los Angeles area. One was open to the public, and one was organized specifically for actors who are members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. A total of 142 community members (94 nonactors and 48 actors) were administered a questionnaire on current vocal health and voice-related quality of life indices (Vocal Handicap Index-10, Vocal Fatigue Index), followed by review and discussion with a laryngologist or a speech pathologist trained in assessment and treatment of voice disorders. A significantly higher percentage of actors (55.1%) reported current voice problems than nonactors (33.0%; χ2=7.122, df=1, P=0.008). Additionally, as measured by the Vocal Fatigue Index 2 subscale, actors reported a greater amount of perceived pain with phonation than the nonactors. Despite over half of the actors reporting current voice concerns, only 7% reported having sought medical advice regarding these concerns. The results of this study suggest that vocal health screenings can help identify persons with voice complaints. However, in order to determine if vocal health screenings help close prevalence-presentation gap and are useful to both medical professionals and participants, more research is needed.

Accounting for Injustice: AFTRA, Work & Singers’ Royalties

This article examines contractual royalties in the U.S. recording industry. Developing Arewa’s (2019) research on entertainment industry contract accounting and Stahl’s (2015) research on record industry royalty reform, we aim to shed light on contractual accounting practices in the record industry and the structural asymmetries of power that characterize them. Central to our analysis is the crucial but until now unstudied role played by the Health and Retirement Funds (“AFTRA H&R Funds” or “H&R Funds”) of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (“AFTRA”) in the economic lives of U.S. recording singers. The activities of this benefits system include monitoring and auditing of singers’ compensation and royalty accounts. Archival and other sorts of evidence documenting these activities provide a new and unique window into otherwise obscure accounting and business practices. Music industry royalty accounting practices, such as those revealed in the archival evidence brought to light in this article, highlight potential problems with contractual accounting. Royalty contractual accounting numbers may not be correct or calculated in a transparent or fair way, which results in a situation that leaves significant room for exploitation of a wide range of artists. This article identifies and makes use of neglected sources and types of evidence and suggests avenues of potential future reform.

The Writers’ Union Meets the Royal Commission

In November 1970, a crisis arose in the Canadian publishing industry: The Ryerson Press, English Canada’s oldest publishing house, was soldto American branch plant McGraw-Hill. In response, the Ontario government mounted a Royal Commission to investigate the businessconditions of publishing in Canada. The commission accepted briefs from anyone who wanted their say and heard hundreds of hours oftestimony. But it wasn’t until Farley Mowat bumped into Richard Rohmer at a party and demanded to know why the commissionwasn’t talking directly to writers—they had actually heard from the few who had sent in briefs—that the date was set for 9 December1971 for a group of writers to give their testimony. Some of those who testified went on to found The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC)in 1973. Jack Gray went on to separate the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) from the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) in order to get a better deal for scriptwriters. The writers testifying before the commission here include June Callwood, Margaret Atwood, Ian Adams, Hugh Garner, Al Purdy, Farley Mowat, Max Braithwaite, David Helwig, Jack Gray, Graeme Gibson, Fred Bodsworth, and Dennis Lee.

Digital Replicas, Performers’ Livelihoods, and Sex Scenes: Likeness Rights for the 21st Century

I would like to thank June Besek and Columbia Law School for the opportunity to participate on this panel to discuss the appropriate breadth, waivability, and term of the right of publicity. New technologies and the fact that the New York bill will not go retroactive to protect already deceased performers has made this a more pressing issue that needs legal solutions, not just one. What should the right of publicity protect? The right of publicity is a property right that should protect rights to company branding, advertisements, merchandise, products, and professional performance. The right of privacy should protect against very real emotional harm caused by abusing a likeness; non-consensual sex scenes are certainly on my mind right now. The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) is a labor union, which means our primary mission is to ensure economic justice and fair and safe working conditions for our members. This union has pioneered protections for groups of artists and journalists once thought impossible. We fight for good union contracts, marketplace rights, child protections, general safety, and laws and regulations to prevent or stop unethical industry practices. It should come as no surprise that the union is experiencing attacks on union contracts, organizing, basic consent on the internet, and intellectual properties generally. Unfortunately, as a result, this union has to sometimes question the bounds of the First Amendment in this digital era. SAG-AFTRA represents a broad swath of creators. We represent film actors, program hosts, recording artists, singers, voiceover artists, online influencers, and other media professionals. This union also belongs to an image rights coalition made up of other unions and organizations representing entertainers. I have the honor of representing 160,000 entertainers and journalists who also happen to be public figures. These are public figures who want to protect their families and possess a degree of control over how their likeness is used in the marketplace. No SAG-AFTRA member is the same; we represent 160,000 unique individuals with different business objectives, views, and priorities when it comes to likeness rights. That being said, not one single performer we have spoken to wants their likeness to enter the public domain upon death. The right of publicity and rights to digital replicas have long been a priority for the union. SAG-AFTRA members desire autonomy over their legacy and career. If there is a value to a likeness after death, their family, close friends, or a designated charity should receive the fruits of their labors. It is also worth noting that some of our members want to be excluded from commercial exploitation altogether. For example, news broadcasters are concerned their reputations as journalists would be significantly harmed if ever associated with a company or put on a T-shirt or on a doll. SAG-AFTRA members work hard to achieve any amount of marketplace value in the entertainment industry. Our members often self-subsidize much of their training and arts experience to be the talented individuals you see at concerts, on Broadway stages, and in the movies. Image and voice rights are essential components of a functional modern marketplace that returns value to labor. Value is not simply measured by celebrity gossip magazines or a large online following. Value may be a certain look, a certain voice, or one extraordinary performance or song that sticks with us. There is undeniable value to images and voices and so the question becomes, who should benefit from this value? A family or a corporation? Or, if there is consent, how about both? That seems like a win-win.

The Importance of Copyright Protection to Audio and Audiovisual Performers in the Digital Age

I have been a professional actor for forty-two years. I have worked in over a hundred theatrical and television films, been in several TV series and done scores of guest appearances on other TV shows. During those years I have also done dramatic radio works, TV and radio commercials, audio books and worked on and off Broadway. Simultaneously, I served over twenty-five years as National President, Vice President and Board Member of Screen Actors Guild, and after our merger, as a Board Member of Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). SAG-AFTRA is a national labor union representing more than 165,000 actors, announcers, broadcasters, recording artists, background vocalists and other media professionals.1 We are the largest performers’ union in the world, and we exist to protect the economic and artistic rights of media artists in motion pictures, television, sound recordings and most other forms of media.2 I was asked to participate in this Symposium as a veteran professional actor as well as a union officer with many years of service to our members. Given my experience and background, I feel I can state that when copyrighted works are infringed upon, misappropriated and downright stolen, it has a direct economic and career impact on everyone who was part of creating those works. During the course of my career, there have been many changes in our business, the most significant of which came with the advent of digital technology. In the world of analog recordings, copies had to be struck directly from master recordings to achieve the highest possible fidelity to the original performances. Every copy of every movie shown in a theater was printed from a master negative, and every video recording that was sold, rented or broadcast was struck from a master recording. These necessities of analog copying substantially restricted the ability of copyright infringers to misappropriate and exploit unauthorized copies. Digital technology took the brakes off copyright infringement through the accessibility and high quality of the stolen material and the ease of stealing it.

The SAG–AFTRA Merger

The merger of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) in March 2012 was the culmination of a thirty-two year struggle to bring the two powerful Hollywood performers’ unions together. As a response to larger trends in the media industries, this merger positions the newly converged union as a more unified front at the bargaining table. By analyzing the public discourse of SAG and AFTRA’s history from 1980 through the 2012 merger, this article situates actors and their unions within the industrial consolidation that began in the 1980s, looking at how and why SAG and AFTRA responded to (and often lagged behind) industry conglomeratization. I argue that by focusing on “convergence,” the merger rhetoric effectively masks one of the core issues that expedited it, namely, the diminishing importance of film and the growing importance of television and other media.

Music business handbook and career guide

Foreword - Stan Cornyn Part I MUSIC IN THE MARKETPLACE 1. Overview More Than Pop Art Versus Commerce Historical Development: Finding a Paying Audience Influence of Mass Media The Arts and Entertainment Industry 2. The Music Business System Getting Through the Maze Music Business Studies in Higher Education Help Wanted! Part II SONGWRITING, PUBLISHING, COPYRIGHT 3. Professional Songwriting The Market Predictors of Success The Craft The Business of Writing Income Sources Publishing Options Evaluating Publishers The Songwriters Guild of America Contract Reassignment or Default Breaking In 4. Music Publishing Types of Publishers Administration Contracts With Writers Split Copyrights, Copublishing Copyright Protection: Sampling Promotion, Advertising Income Sources Trade Associations 5. Music Copyright Background Essential Provisions Key Terms Coverage Exclusive Rights Fair Use of Copyrighted Material Copyright Ownership Transfer or Assignment Work Made for Hire Musical Arrangements Sound Recordings Compulsory Mechanical License Royalty Payments Duration of Copyright Formalities Infringement, Remedy Record Counterfeiting, Penalties Changing Laws Rights in Names and Trademarks A Final Note on Law Part III BUSINESS AFFAIRS 6. Music Licensing Music Rights: An Overview Performing Rights Organizations Keeping Track of the Music Membership Options Mechanical Licenses Synchronization Licenses Cable Television Licenses Video Licenses Transcription Licenses Jukebox Licenses Dramatic Music Rights 7. Agents, Managers, and Attorneys Agents Managers Attorneys Business Management Techniques 8. Artists' Recording Contracts AFTRA Agreements AFM Agreements 9. Unions and Guilds American Federation of Musicians American Federation of Television and Radio Artists American Guild of Musical Artists American Guild of Variety Artists Actors' Equity Association Screen Actors Guild International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Other Unions and Guilds Part IV MANAGING, PRODUCING, AND MERCHANDISING 10. Artist Management Discovering Each Other The Financial Relationship Manager's Commission Advancing the Career Personal Management Agreement 11. Record Production Record Producers Matching Producer to Artist Production Deals The Recording Studio: Operation and Selection The Five Stages of Record Production Getting Started as a Producer Professional Associations 12. Concert Promotion Getting Started Booking the Artist Making an Offer The Art of the Deal Contracts Marketing Publicity and Public Relations Sponsorships Ticketing 13. Arts Administration The Classical Music Market Perspective Representative Organizations Symphonic Music Funding the Arts State Arts Councils Administration 14. Music Products Music Retailers Sales Leaders Promotion of Musical Products Financial Management in Music Retail New Trends in Music Retail Trade Associations Opportunities for Employment Part V THE RECORDING INDUSTRY 15. Scope of the Recording Industry Perspective Major Labels Independent Labels Specialty Labels Do-It-Yourself Recording Recording Company Structure National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences 16. Record Promotion, Distribution, and Retailing The Marketing Plan The Elements of a Marketing Plan Record Distribution Retail Merchandising 17. Record Markets Research Methods The Charts Data Collection Market Research Record Categorization Stylistic Preferences 18. The Digital Age The Double-Edged Sword Internet Synergy Labels Lay Seeds of Self-Destruction Smaller, Cheaper, Faster, Better (?) The Economics of Digital Distribution: Change and Evolution The New Economic Order The Digital Future Part VI MUSIC IN BROADCASTING AND FILM AND THEATER 19. Music in Radio Types of Stations Audience Identification and Market Research Spectrum of Formats How Commercial Radio Stations Work 20. Music in Television Variety and Talk Shows Music Specials/Events/Awards Shows Theme Songs Background Music and Foreground Spotlights The Singer/Actors The Commercials The Evolving TV Picture TMTV and the Rise of the Music Video Producing Short-Form Videos 21. Dramatic Scoring for Motion Pictures and TV Background The Craft Music Scoring for TV Library Music Hiring Practices 22. Music in Advertising Influences on Style Jobs Music Uses Budgets Station Logos The Agency Role Spot Production 23. Music and Theater Types of Musical Theater Broadway Musicals Theater Associations Production Components 24. Business Music Foreground and Background Music Service Companies Production Music Libraries Part VII CAREER PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 25. Career Options Creative Careers Producing/Directing Careers Performing Careers Teaching Careers Broadcasting/Film/Video Game Careers Music-Related Careers Entrepreneurs/Starting Your Own Business 26. Starting Your Own Business Getting the Process Started Choosing a Name Forms of Ownership Permits and Legalities Raising Funds Marketing Web Promotion Accounting and Finance Keeping Track of the Money Operations Management Management Where to From Here? 27. Career Development Defining Goals Climbing the Ladder Finding Work Part VIII CANADIAN MUSIC INDUSTRY AND INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT What You Need to Know About Canada's Music Scene - Richard Flohil International Copyright: The World Market Outside the United States - Phil Hardy and Dave Laing Appendix A: Membership and Copyright Forms Appendix B: Selected Readings Appendix C: Professional Organizations Glossary Index About the Author and Editor

Non-uniform time scale modification using instants of significant excitation and vowel onset points

In this paper, a non-uniform time scale modification (TSM) method is proposed for increasing or decreasing speech rate. The proposed method modifies the durations of vowel and pause segments by different modification factors. Vowel segments are modified by factors based on their identities, and pause segments by uniform factors based on the desired speaking rate. Consonant and transition (consonant-to-vowel) segments are not modified in the proposed TSM. These modification factors are derived from the analysis of slow and fast speech collected from professional radio artists. In the proposed TSM method, vowel onset points (VOPs) are used to mark the consonant, transition and vowel regions, and instants of significant excitation (ISE) are used to perform TSM as required. The VOPs indicate the instants at which the onsets of vowels take place. The ISE, also known as epochs, indicate the instants of glottal closure during voiced speech, and some random excitations such as burst onset during non-voiced speech. In this work, VOPs are determined using multiple sources of evidence from excitation source, spectral peaks, modulation spectrum and uniformity in epoch intervals. The ISEs are determined using a zero-frequency filter method. The performance of the proposed non-uniform TSM scheme is compared with uniform and existing non-uniform TSM schemes using epoch and time domain pitch synchronous overlap and add (TD-PSOLA) methods.

Wrestling with Employment Status: Workers' Compensation Benefits for Professional Wrestlers

Severe injuries are all-too-common in the world of professional wrestling. Professional wrestlers must have serious athletic ability to perform these maneuvers and, sometimes, even the best wrestlers have accidents. The extremely physical nature of the sport creates a very high risk for injury in almost every match. Professional wrestlers also act during live broadcasts to engage the audience and move the story forward, much like in live theater. While some wrestling companies have policies of paying out-of-pocket for in-ring injuries, they are not currently required to do so. Because the sport is so dangerous and because of the duties required and the amount of control exercised by wrestling companies, professional wrestlers should be considered employees for the purpose of receiving workers’ compensation benefits. In the alternative, should they continue to be considered independent contractors, professional wrestlers should have the opportunity to join a union, such as the Screen Actor’s Guild or the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, without first having to appear in a film or other television show.

Pieces of Sound: German Experimental Radio by Daniel Gilfillan (review)

Reviewed by: Pieces of Sound: German Experimental Radio by Daniel Gilfillan Paul J. Buchholz Daniel Gilfillan, Pieces of Sound: German Experimental Radio. Minneapolis: U Minnesota P, 2009. 240 pp. Pieces of Sound: German Experimental Radio constitutes an admirable contribution to the development of our critical vocabulary by advancing a convincing argument about what constitutes experimental art. By delimiting its object of study as specifically experimental radio, Daniel Gilfillan’s fascinating study attains an illuminating precision in its explication of artistic projects that, over the course of the twentieth century, made use of a common technology: the radio apparatus, as it appeared in its various manifestations as transmitter, receiver, or both. Here Gilfillan makes an important distinction: experimentation, rather than being (for instance) simply another name for technological inventiveness, is the specifically artistic engagement with radio. For much of the twentieth century, to broadcast has always been a political act, since the (in)ability to do so has always been dictated by official policy [End Page 178] over who owns the airwaves and who makes the electromagnetic spectrum available for public and/or private use. The common thread of the transgressions laid out by Gilfillan, from the 1920s to the 2000s, is a tendency to resist the univocal impositions of one-way transmission as permitted by sovereign authority. Experimental radio attempts to reintroduce the interactive and reflective dimension of the radio as a fleeting encounter between isolated voices and positions (whereas radio has, historically, been solidified into a means of transmitting one monumental signal to privately owned receivers that would seem to permit only passive listening). As Gilfillan develops his argument and moves toward a discussion of late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century radio, it becomes increasingly clear that transgressive experimentation is linked to a decentered, autonomous, grassroots social organization. The experimenters described by Gilfillan consistently strive to uncover radio’s repressed potential for a non–hierarchically structured, polyphonic communication that goes beyond the consumption of monumental broadcasts. In the first chapter, Gilfillan presents readers with Atau Tanaka’s multimedia art project Wiretapping the Beast (2002), which he sees as a crystallization of the ambitions of the radio artists described in the preceding chapter. Wiretapping the Beast, as internet-based experimental radio art supported by the broadcaster Südwestrundfunk, worked both as an instantiation of and a commentary on cybernetics, giving online users the chance to create and feed a virtual beast, that was created on-screen as a graphical and sonic collage of user-supplied texts and images. This experiment, while beginning in the internet, also involved a live performance in Japan as well as a sound-only radio broadcast. From this turn-of-the-millennium rebus, Gilfillan moves on to a fascinating discussion of the theoretical texts and experimental broadcasts of Hans Flesch from the 1920s as well as the works of Wilhelm Bischoff and Friedrich Wolf, who were together interested in a technology-specific radio art that would involve more than broadcasting music and literature. Each of these experiments finds a distinct way of questioning the passive consumerism encouraged by the radio receiver as a mere transmitter, encouraging listeners to reflect on the conventions and expectations that make typical entertainment broadcasts function (for instance, Bischoff’s work includes hyperbolic headlines that lampoon the widespread obsession with extreme misfortune and extreme athletic ability). Had Pieces of Sound been longer, it would have been [End Page 179] exciting to hear more detailed accounts of these works, which were accessed through meticulous archival research. Since the better part of the chapter is devoted to situation, the reader may be left with enduring curiosity about the aesthetic qualities of these broadcasts, even after Gilfillan’s summaries. Two final chapters probe experiments that have sought to employ radio for the construction of an alternative public sphere. In chapter 3, Gilfillan provides a sympathetic portrayal of Bertolt Brecht’s theory of a critical and pedagogical radio, which has been dismissed by Friedrich Kittler as a naive failure to understand radio’s essential link to warfare due to its origins as a military technology. Gilfillan legitimates Brecht’s unrealized theories by showing how Alfred Andersch’s own postwar radio broadcasts sought to make radio...

“What Has My Union Done For Me?” The Screen Actors Guild, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and Actors' Equity Association respond to McCarthy-Era blacklisting

Like any other unions, the three American actor’s unions, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), and Actors’ Equity Association (AEA) are expected to fight for the rights of their members, whether for better benefits, wages, or working conditions. In the 1950s they were forced into a new and challenging battle. The different methods these unions chose to face and fight the onslaught brought on by the blacklisting of their members are the focus of this article.

Divided they stand: Hollywood unions in the information age

In an effort to increase labour power, trade unions representing communications and creative workers in North America have pursued a form of convergence, merging with each other and restructuring themselves along similar lines to their employers. This paper examines the issues surrounding labour convergence by taking up the failed merger between the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. It finds that, although the leaders of both unions supported the merger, the particular characteristics of the unions, including their culture, sense of craft identity and the lived experience of members, derailed the effort.

The Exchange

In this discussion, an Australian sound artist/radio producer and a new media educator debate the potential for a radio-web project that enables new forms of radio content, production and distribution. The radio-website will offer two levels of interaction: digital media producers can use it as an ‘open studio’, and the public can interact with published works. The project explores the ways in which radio artists, who now find limited avenues for research and development in broadcast radio, can exploit new forms of listening made available through internet services. The site is intended to offer content appropriate for convergent media, thereby demonstrating how latest technologies can be used to extend content approaches beyond accepted broadcast forms.

A Bob and Ray Retrospective

NEIL SCHMITZ A Bob and Ray Retrospective Text: Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding. Foreword by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Write if you get work, The Best of Bob & Ray. New York: Random House, 1975· Audio: Bob & Ray: The Soap Operas, 4 vols.; Classic Bob & Ray, 4 vols.; The Best of Bob & Ray, 4 vols. Vintage Bob & Ray, 2 vols. New York: The Radio Foundation (RADIOART): P.O. Box 2000 GPO, New York, NY 101 16-2000. IBEGiN with a testimonial. I owe my tough trim body, my radiant health, to Bob & Ray. Pop in a cassette from Larry Josephson's wonderful RadioArt collection as you begin your morning exercise. Pump iron. Do your hundred sit-ups. Robert Brackett Elliott and Raymond Walter Goulding, radio artists, in their easeful funny way, entertain you. Time flies. You forget you are exercising. They are so droll, so preposterous. The inflatus of humor helps you stretch muscles and joints. Each side of the cassette is exactly a half-hour in its play. When you get up in the morning, you don't think, groaning, of the exercise you must do. You think, brightly, of listening to some Bob & Ray. You exercise in order to listen to Bob & Ray. Bob Elliott, born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1923, is still with us. Ray Goulding, born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922, is gone. Bob & Ray, the radio performance, extends from 1946, their first show on WHDH in Boston, Matinee with Bob and Ray, to 1986, their final show on NPR, The Bob and Ray Public Radio Show. It is one of the great oeuvres in Arizona Quarter^ Volume 55, Number 1, Spring 1999 Copyright © 1999 by Arizona Board of Regents issN 0004-1610 152Neil Schmitz American humorous literature. George Herriman's cartoon strip, Krazy Kat, had similar duration and sustained excellence. Herriman did a single gag, Ignatz hurling a brick at Krazy, for almost thirty years, 19121941 . The brick was immense in its meaning. Herriman got from it a brilliant humorous poetry: Krazy's mewling babytalk, Ignatz's ratty jive, Herriman's own Joycean captions. The cartoon took place in Coconino County, Arizona, Grand Canyon country, and its desert perspectives, its odd mesas, its desert skies, were surreally drawn. In Krazy Kat Spanish is almost a second language. In Krazy Kat interspecies love is always offered, always rejected. Bob 6k Ray, the performance, is just as deep, just as long, in its ingenuity, its characterization, its single endlessly productive gag. A literary retrospective is in order. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. has in fact begun the evaluation. His essay, "Bob and Ray, An Appreciation," written for the catalog of The Museum of Broadcasting exhibit, "The Bob & Ray Retrospective, June 15-July 10, 1982," raises several important issues I want to explore in this essay, one of them being the substantiality of their humor, its capacity, its competence. What humor carries, what humor does, is, of course, always a serious question in Vonnegut's fiction. Think of what is loaded into the phrase, "so it goes," in Shughterhouse -Five (1969), the title-page of which describes the author as a "fourth-generation-German-American now living in easy circumstances on Cape Cod [and smoking too much], who, as an American infantry scout hors de combat, as a prisoner of war, witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany, 'The Florence of the Elbe,' a long time ago, and survived to tell the tale." There is a craft kinship, Vonnegut, Bob Elliott, Ray Goulding. He takes them into the phrasing ofhis humor. "What was inherently comical about radio is comical about television today: the necessity of seeming well worth paying attention to, even when less than nothing was going on. Bob and Ray, both serious radio announcers at one time, one day discovered that they coirld be comedians by intentionally trying and failing to be wonderful when less than nothing was going on. / Their jokes turn out to be universal, although deeply rooted in old-time radio, because so much of life presents itself as the same dilemma: how to seem lusty and purposeful when less than nothing is going on." How do Bob 6k Ray universalize, escape the tyranny of the referent, the discourse of a particular radio show, its characters, its...

Early Country Music and the Mass Media in Roanoke, Virginia

It is only since the early 1960s that scholarly interest in the history and development of American country music has gained acceptability in academic circles.' Researchers have largely focused on the careers of recording such as Bob Wills, Jimmie Rodgers, and Grandpa Jones2 and, to a lesser degree, those artists who performed on the radio.3 But recent books by Charles Wolfe and Ivan Tribe have broadened the geographic scope of research by presenting statewide historical surveys.4 Some scholars have taken an applied approach to the subject: Richard Blaustein of East Tennessee State University in Johnson City has helped organize annual programs that feature local country radio stars from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. In October 1985 the Folklife Program of North Carolina conducted a series of well-researched programs that spotlighted some of the country musicians who had performed over Charlotte's WBT.5 The Blue Ridge Institute of Ferrum College chose a similar route when it sponsored a stage show of early country radio artists from Roanoke, Virginia, during the 1985 Blue Ridge Folklife Festival. These instances underscore not only the increasingly diverse nature and dissemination of country music scholarship but also the trend toward projects related to local and regional histories. Because country music-indeed folk music in general-springs from such microcosms, such studies constitute the most basic research. Bill Malone's author-

ACTRA And The CBC

“Who flung dung at Nellie McClung”, is a ditty recalled by theatre critic Herbert Whittaker in his assessment of the battle between the Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The argument centred on the hiring of American actress Kathleen Widdoes to play the Canadian suffragette Nellie McClung and the issue brought the long seething disagreement between the bodies to national attention.

Labor relations in the broadcasting industry: Periodical literature 1937–1964

Of considerable importance to both employer and employee in American broadcasting stations are many questions concerning their relationship. The following bibliography on labor relations in the broadcasting field was compiled by Professor Koenig partly for use in his doctoral dissertation, “American Federation of Television and Radio Artists Decision‐Making on the Transcription Code” (Northwestern, 1964). Dr. Koenig is assistant professor in the Department of Speech (broadcasting) at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.