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Jun. 30 | 2012 Bode-Pearson Prize
Nominations for the 2012 Bode-Pearson Prize for Outstanding Contributions to American Studies due
Jun. 30 | 2012 Mary C. Turpie Prize
Nominations for the 2012 Mary C. Turpie Prize for Outstanding Contributions to American Studies Teaching, Advising, and Program Development due
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Simpson, Kim. "Hit Radio and the Formatting of America in the Early 1970s," American Studies, University of Texas at Austin, April 2006.
This dissertation focuses on the early seventies emergence of “hit radio” formats, which refer to distinct musical genres characterizing the output of a given commercial music station. I make four overarching arguments in this study: first, commercial radio industry professionals, experimenting aggressively with formats and working to understand and articulate the nature of American radio audiences, were driving factors in the development of this new cultural environment. Second, the proliferation of hit radio formats in the early seventies represented an industry move that became a blueprint for subsequent market segmentation. Third, these new formats often functioned as “escapes” or safe havens in which radio listeners could opt out of the social turmoil and cultural anxieties of the day. And fourth, hit radio formats provided an industry-driven means whereby radio listeners could potentially reimagine and redefine key issues of identity. This study is organized according to the five prominent hit radio formats in the early 1970s. Top 40 stations, I argue, became a shared space between adults and children where parents could, in a sense, engage in their children’s cultural realm while children could likewise sample the world of adults. “Middle of the road” formats, aimed towards the highly prized “housewife demographic,” provided a testing ground for notions of femininity in the midst of the women’s liberation movement. The “progressive rock” format became an apolitical shelter experimenting with fixed notions of masculinity during the Vietnam War and the Nixon administration’s war on drugs. “Soul” formats tested the boundaries of identity-formation for African-American audiences when its politically-oriented playlists gave way to softer, more sanitized fare. And country formats, finally, tampered with fixed ideas of rural American identity in a manner that ultimately eased the often isolated demographic securely into the mainstream. My conclusion makes a case for the significance of early seventies hit radio formatting as a crucial element in understanding today’s niche-oriented American mediascape.
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