Graduation Date
1976
Document Type
Thesis
Program
Other
Program
Arts
Committee Chair Name
Dr. James E. Seward
Committee Chair Affiliation
Cal Poly Humboldt Faculty or Staff
Keywords
Art
Subject Categories
Art
Abstract
It is known that American radio broadcasters concern themselves with attracting listeners even though listeners generally consider listening to the radio as something with which one need not be actively concerned. While most Americans are part of a huge group of radio listeners, few realize that broadcasters spend both time and money attempting to attract listeners. Since radio stations make money from selling air time to advertisers who want to convince the listeners to buy the advertised product and/or services, those stations with the largest audiences are the stations which can charge the most for the air time and thus make the most money in the radio business. As such, the listening audience is any radio station’s most valuable commodity. This, together with the fact that much money can be made by broadcasters who successfully devise programming which attracts large audiences, explains why anybody who programs a radio station must be concerned with attracting listeners even though the listeners may never be consciously aware that they are being attracted. In American radio broadcasting there are successful radio programmers just as there are unsuccessful radio programmers. Equally true is that the successful ones typically gain acclaim in the broadcasting industry if the successes are large. The radio programming of Bill Drake and Gene Chenault, as broadcasters know, became the "talk of the industry" in the 1960's because of how that programming attracted a sizeable national audience. Yet, no one has attempted an in-depth analysis of this "success story." While the Drake-Chenault programming received coverage in trade publications, beyond that exists little more than verbal "legends" concerning the programming pair's power and mystique. In February 1975 when I decided to proceed with the extensive task of attempting such an in-depth analysis, I discovered a major reason for the lack of any previous serious study of Drake and Chenault: A person attempting such a project ultimately had to realize the futility of locating all the persons involved, let alone convincing those persons to talk at length about the subject. Even when I had accumulated literally miles of tape containing the recorded interviews of a representative sample of participants in the Drake-Chenault "success story," I knew that it was not possible to discover everything about what Drake and Chenault accomplished. Perhaps the main consolation is that such is typical of all complex human events. Obviously since this study was completed within the time period that Drake and Chenault exist and continue to function as programmers, there is the factor of not being able to know how the full story of Drake-Chenault programming will unfold in the coming years. This study is only a beginning of that larger story, but one that should give the reader a perspective that will promote a professional understanding of the rhetorical nature of the actions of contemporary radio programmers. This study covers the period from 1965 through 1976. The reader should bear in mind that the terms "current," and "present time" will thus refer to 1975-76. This study would have been impossible without the cooperation of the interview respondents, some of whom gave quite generously of their time to share their recollections on the subject with me. I extend my gratitude to those who agreed to the interviews.
Recommended Citation
Goulart, Elwood F., "The Mystique and the Mass Persuasion: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Drake-Chenault Radio Programming 1965-1976" (1976). Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects. 2408.
https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/etd/2408