In the cityscape of the 1980s and 1990s, the "NO RADIO" sign promi-
nently displayed above a car dashboard or in a driver's-side window has
become almost as familiar a message as "Loading Zone" or "No Turns" or
"Curb Your Dog." Even during a record-setting East Coast blizzard in 1994,
when snow blanketed Manhattan streets up to seven feet deep, one car
owner had reached his almost entirely buried vehicle to leave the message
observed in passing by film scholar Richard Brown: "The owner, ever vigi-
lant, ever a New Yorker, had scratched into the snow, below the visible
glass in four-inch letters, 'No Radio. '" ¹ In that notice, written in urban short-
hand, the fearful car owner sought to prevent a frequent but unauthorized
kind of property transfer. However, many experienced listeners might read
that declaration in another sense: the kind of broadcasting that they had
known and treasured had been filched away some time ago, and there is no
radio anymore.

During recent decades the Federal Communications Commission, tak-
ing a the-more-stations-the-better stance, accelerated broadcasting's evo-
lution by allowing the AM and FM bands to become crowded electronic
platforms for "shock jocks" and long-and-loud-breathing pundits. "Urban
Contemporary" joined "Top 40" as a highly favored music format, often
offered by "ghost" stations without announcers, turntables, or compact
disc players, but staffed by an engineer or two to supervise the importing
of programs from large syndicated tape reels or from contracted satellite
services. (Only the synchronized insertions of station IDs and local corn-
mercials would assure the listener that the outlet was licensed to Dover or
to Dallas).

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