Papers presented by Sadie Couture since 2019

2025 Atlanta, Georgia

"'Problem Areas': Responsibility and Risk in Postwar Call-in Talk Radio"

Abstract:

“You are responsible, with very few exceptions, for what is seen and heard over your station” declares a National Association of Broadcasters publication from September 1980. Like newspapers and magazines—but unlike telephones and today’s social media companies—radio stations are liable for what they broadcast, and licenses, fines, and damages are at stake. As radio moved to more ad-libbed and unscripted formats in the postwar ‘television age,’ this risk grew and stations sought to mitigate it. Call-in radio was seen as particularly problematic, as an insurance executive warned in 1968, it was a “problem area” he considered “appropriate for special risk insurance.” By 1970, broadcast insurance was niche, but widespread, and was primarily provided by five companies: Fireman's Fund American, Employers Reinsurance Corporation, The Seaboard Surety Company, The Mutual Insurance Company, and Lloyd's of London. These companies made demands on radio stations about call screening, editorial practices, and equipment—specifically, delay systems. Variously called a ‘tape delay,’ ‘profanity delay,’ or ‘seven-second delay,’ early technology involved recording the live audio on tape and then replaying it for broadcast a few seconds afterwards. If a caller were to say something extralegal on the air, a producer could step in and disrupt the playback. Drawing on archival documents, trade literature, industry magazines, and sample insurance policies, this paper traces the entanglements between broadcast insurance and the seven-second delay, which together helped to usher call-in talk radio into cultural and industrial dominance in the latter part of the twentieth century. The importance of call-in radio to the rise of political polarization and the forms of interactivity and commodification of audience time and labor conventionalized by this format make the study of this entanglement essential for understanding the ways in which the coercive power of insurance and the material form of technology have shaped our media landscape.