ABSTRACT
Radio jokes abounded in the early 1950s: onecartoon showed a young boy dusting off a radio in the attic and asking his dad, “What’s that?” Americans had seen icemen put out of work, ice chests discarded for refrigerators, and silent pictures give way to talkies. It was against memories like these-recent memories-that many people gauged radio’s chances against television. Radio was rapidly becoming something else, but what that was, no one could say. It is no wonder that so many people, in discussing radio’s imminent death, confused the networks with the industry as a whole. The networks were certainly crippled, but independent radio thrived; the little talking box was a long way from being ready for the attic. At first, the young pioneers of radio’s second coming did not attract as much publicity as the network moguls. Many of the most innovative labored in the Midwest, far from the media capitals. Because they often worked by trial-anderror, they could not always articulate their plans and strategies. But they were succeeding.
