July 5, 1976: Slow Leak

On July 5, 2026June 29, 2026 By jbIn One Day in Your Life1 Comment

(Pictured: the weather was pleasant across most of the country on July 5, 1976, and a good day for a belated holiday picnic.)

July 5, 1976, is a Monday, the legal holiday celebrating Independence Day and America’s Bicentennial. Ugandan president Idi Amin threatens retaliation after Israeli commandos rescued hijacking hostages at Entebbe Airport early yesterday. President Ford, after a busy day of Bicentennial events yesterday, attends a naturalization ceremony for 100 new citizens at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. His traveling party visits Jefferson’s grave before returning to Washington, where Ford spends the rest of the day with meetings and phone calls. In Plains, Georgia, Jimmy Carter visits with Senator Ed Muskie of Maine, who is under consideration for the VP slot with Carter in November. Others mentioned in conjunction with the job are senators John Glenn, Frank Church, and Walter Mondale. In New York, thousands of visitors crowd the city’s waterfront to see the remaining tall ships that sailed in the harbor yesterday. America’s next big event is a state visit by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, in honor of the Bicentennial. They will arrive in Philadelphia tomorrow and be officially greeted by Ford on Wednesday. At the Queen’s request, Bob Hope and Telly Savalas will entertain at a state dinner that night. The royals will visit New York, New Haven, Charlottesville, Newport, and Boston before moving on to Canada on Sunday.

The top-grossing movie at the box office is The Omen, which opened this past Wednesday, June 30. Other popular movies include the World War II drama Midway, with an all-star cast led by Charlton Heston and Henry Fonda (playing in Sensurround where theaters are equipped with it); the comedy Mother, Jugs, and Speed starring Bill Cosby, Raquel Welch, and Harvey Keitel; The Missouri Breaks with Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando; and All the President’s Men.

On TV tonight, CBS presents Rhoda, Phyllis, All in the Family, Maude, and Medical Center. NBC presents The Rich Little Show, Joe Forrester (starring Lloyd Bridges as a Los Angeles beat cop), and Jigsaw John (starring Jack Warden as a Los Angeles detective). All shows on CBS and NBC are repeats. ABC is the only network with new programming tonight: an episode of the sitcom Viva Valdez and Monday Night Baseball, which sees the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies 6-0.

Elvis Presley sings at Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis. No one knows it, but it will be his final show in his hometown. John Sebastian plays at Summerfest on the lakefront in Milwaukee.

Perspective From the Present: On July 5th, 1976, the Bicentennial was a balloon with a slow leak. Although CBS continued to broadcast its primetime Bicentennial Minutes through the end of the year, the observance, which had begun two years before, soon started to seem threadbare and seedy. Within weeks, Bicentennial merchandise (such as the commemorative plate pictured here, which hangs on the wall in my office) was on clearance.

It’s easy to imagine an alternate Bicentennial celebration that began on July 4, 1976. Some of the most storied and significant events of the American Revolution were still in the future on July 4, 1776, including Washington’s crossing of the Delaware and his defeat of the British at Trenton, the American victory at Saratoga, the winter at Valley Forge, the alliance with France, and the victory at Yorktown. It was those events that sealed the destiny of the new nation, far more than the signing of the Declaration of Independence at Philadelphia. We might easily have commemorated them as their bicentennials occurred over the next two years.

We didn’t do that, of course. We were ready to put the celebration out at the curb like a dried-out Christmas tree. Like the Bicentennial itself, that, too, is distinctly American. We are much better at moving forward and imagining new futures than we are at looking back and learning from where we have been. So it’s no wonder we tossed the Bicentennial away so quickly.

(If you’re interested in how the world looked on the day after the Bicentennial, the ABC Evening News from July 5, 1976, is at YouTube. Part 1 is here.)

The second half of this post is a reboot of previously published material, but the first part is new. And with this, we are now going on hiatus. We will return when we return, and not a minute before.

Thanks as always for your continuing patronage of this Internet feature.

July 4, 1976: Today’s the Day

On July 4, 2026July 1, 2026 By jbIn One Day in Your Life, Repeat Posts1 Comment

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(Pictured: patriots march in Beulah, Colorado, said to be the smallest town in America to hold a Bicentennial parade.)

July 4, 1976, is a Sunday. It is the American Bicentennial, a celebration that has been in the making since 1973. President Gerald Ford visits Valley Forge and Philadelphia for activities marking the date. After Philadelphia, Ford heads to New York for Operation Sail, the flotilla of 200 ships from around the world sailing in New York Harbor, before returning to the White House. The 10-car Freedom Train, which began its national tour in April 1975, is in Detroit today; among its historical displays is a car full of recording-industry memorabilia, including Bing Crosby’s gold record for “White Christmas” and Jack Benny’s violin. (Merle Haggard’s song “Here Comes the Freedom Train” is at #10 on the current country chart.) The presumed Democratic presidential nominee, Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, spends the day in Westville, Georgia, dedicating a new courthouse. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service officially lists the bald eagle as an endangered species. The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum opens for the first time.

Four doubleheaders are scheduled in the majors today: Texas Rangers at the Chicago White Sox, California Angels at Minnesota, Chicago Cubs at the Mets, and Philadelphia at Pittsburgh. All four are split. In the first game in Pittsburgh, Phillies catcher Tim McCarver hits a grand-slam home run, but is called out for passing teammate Garry Maddox on the bases. Cale Yarborough wins the NASCAR Firecracker 400 at Daytona.

A number of major stadium shows are scheduled for today. Elton John plays Schaefer Stadium in suburban Boston. The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, and Loggins and Messina play in Tampa Stadium. Also today: Peter Frampton and Gary Wright at Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta; KISS and Bob Seger in Richmond; the Ohio Players, Labelle, Rufus, and War at the Pontiac Silverdome in suburban Detroit; and ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Outlaws, and Blue Oyster Cult in Memphis. A show scheduled for RFK Stadium in Washington starring the Beach Boys and Chicago was recently canceled by promoters because of new city rules limiting ticket sales and show times. Washington’s official Fourth of July celebration on the National Mall stars Johnny Cash and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. A People’s Bicentennial event will be staged at the Capitol. Among the speakers there will be boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter and Jane Fonda; musical performers include Don McLean, Peter Yarrow, Gil Scott-Heron, and the Star Spangled Washboard Band.

Tonight, CBS and NBC air coverage of Bicentennial events nationwide, as they have done all day. NBC also has a Bob Hope Bicentennial special with guests Debbie Reynolds, Sammy Davis Jr., Donny and Marie Osmond, and the Captain and Tennille. ABC goes a different direction, with the hourlong special The Glory Road West, a celebration of the American West narrated by Chad Everett, Henry Fonda, and Buffy Sainte Marie, and the 1972 theatrical film The New Land, about Swedish immigrants to Minnesota, starring Max Von Sydow and Liv Ullman.

On a special edition of American Top 40 this weekend, Casey Kasem plays each song that was #1 in America on July 4 from 1937 through 1976. It ends with “Silly Love Songs” by Paul McCartney and Wings, which is in its last week at the top. On the current Hot 100, “Afternoon Delight” by the Starland Vocal Band moves from #7 to #2. The only new song in the Billboard Top 10 is Gary Wright’s “Love Is Alive.” The biggest mover in the Top 40 is “Let Her In” by John Travolta, leaping from #26 to #13. Billboard‘s #1 album is Wings at the Speed of Sound. The #1 song on the soul chart is “Something He Can Feel” by Aretha Franklin. Joe Stampley’s “All These Things” is #1 country. The #1 song on the Easy Listening chart is “Today’s the Day” by America.

Perspective From the Present: I spent most of this day at a picnic with my mothers’ extended family. We also watched watch some of the TV coverage of bicentennial events, because that was pretty much the only thing on. That night, we went to our traditional spot to watch the hometown fireworks.

I have written a great deal about the summer of 1976 in this blog’s almost 22-year history. It’s not merely different from my other growing-up summers. It’s eternal. At some moments, thanks to a song or the angle of the light, it feels as if the door that would grant my fond wish and take me back there is very close, if only I could see it.

This post is rebooted from a couple of things I have previously written about Bicentennial Day. Coming tomorrow: another holiday reboot.

July 3, 1966: Summer Shower

On July 3, 2026June 29, 2026 By jbIn One Day in Your Life2 Comments

July 3, 1966, is a Sunday. A heat wave grips much of the nation, and high temperature records are set all over the northeastern United States. At La Guardia Airport in New York and in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the high temperature reaches 107 degrees. In Allentown, Pennsylvania, and Newark, New Jersey, it’s 105. Philadelphia ties its record high for July with 104. In New York’s Central Park, the high is 103. Yesterday, General William Westmoreland told reporters that the United States has “a long way to go, but we are beginning to win” in Vietnam. Today in London, an antiwar demonstration outside the U.S. Embassy turns violent, with 31 arrests after scuffles break out in the crowd of 4,000. President Johnson and the First Lady are at the LBJ Ranch for the July 4 holiday. Their day includes no official events. Last week, Johnson proclaimed today the start of National Safe Boating Week. In Durand, Wisconsin, eight people over the age of 65 are now being treated at St. Benedict’s Hospital under the new federal Medicare program, which went into effect this past week.

Future NFL quarterback Neil O’Donnell and future major leaguer Moises Alou are born. In the majors today, Atlanta Braves pitcher Tony Cloninger stakes his team to a big lead in the top of the first by hitting a grand slam home run off San Francisco Giants pitcher Bob Priddy. In the top of the fourth, Cloninger hits a second grand slam. He ends the day with nine runs batted in, and also scatters seven hits and goes the distance in a 17-3 Braves victory. The Giants continue to lead the National League by two-and-a-half games over the Pittsburgh Pirates. In the American League, Baltimore has a seven-game lead over second-place Detroit.

On TV tonight, NBC presents The Wonderful World of Disney, Branded, Bonanza, and The Wackiest Ship in the Army. CBS presents Lassie, My Favorite Martian, The Ed Sullivan Show, Perry Mason, Candid Camera, and What’s My Line. ABC airs Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The FBI, and the theatrical movie Say One for Me, a 1959 musical comedy starring Bing Crosby, Debbie Reynolds, and Robert Wagner.

The Grateful Dead plays at the Fillmore in San Francisco. The concert is recorded but will not see an official release until 2015. Ella Fitzgerald plays the Newport Jazz Festival, and the Yardbirds and the Troggs play in Blackpool, England. On their brief Aftermath tour, the Rolling Stones play two evening shows in Asbury Park, New Jersey, each one running about 35 minutes. Opening acts include the McCoys and the Standells. In Nashville, the Summer Shower of Stars presents Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Percy Sledge, Patti Labelle and the Blue Belles, and other R&B acts. Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable featuring the Velvet Underground wraps up a two-week engagement at Poor Richard’s in Chicago. It was held over after a successful first week. Herman’s Hermits and the Animals play the Los Angeles Sports Arena. The Beatles, just off a two-night stand in Tokyo, travel first to Hong Kong and then to Manila for the last two shows of their brief Asian tour tomorrow. Although they are greeted warmly by fans, they are treated rudely by Phillippine officials. They spend the day on a private yacht in Manila Harbor.

The Beatles’ double-A sided “Paperback Writer”/”Rain” is just off a week at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, replaced at #1 this week by Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night.” “Paperback Writer”/”Rain” is also #1 in Cash Box. It’s #5 on WOKY in Milwaukee, where “Hanky Panky” by Tommy James and the Shondells is #1. “Sweet Pea” by Tommy Roe is up from #7 to #2 on WOKY this week. Other hits in the Top 10 include “Strangers in the Night” (which was #1 in Milwaukee last month), Sam the Sham’s “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Along Comes Mary” by the Association, and “Oh How Happy” by Shades of Blue. WOKY is promoting an event at Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, Wisconsin, today and tomorrow.

Perspective From the Present: The song that is most evocative of this midsummer is “Strangers in the Night,” which I would have heard a lot on the radio stations Mother and Dad listened to. It makes me think of the little inflatable swimming pool and the little tent we’d set up in the dooryard. When you are six, it doesn’t take much more to make a memorable summer. Maybe an empty refrigerator box to play in?

This post is by reader request. Still to come this weekend: more holiday programming.

From Nowhere At All

On June 29, 2026June 29, 2026 By jbIn Radio TalesLeave a comment

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(Pictured: “You expect me to believe the garbage in that press release? C’mon man.”)

Over the weekend I decided I had more to say about the layoffs at iHeart Radio last week.

—Sean Ross discussed the meaning of “live and local,” a phrase often used by stations that have to compete with iHeart and such. He notes that simply saying you’re live and local isn’t enough. Does your station provide a sense of place, and does it sound like it’s “in the moment”?

“Sense of place” and “in the moment” can be achieved with voicetracking. But it requires time and care, which is impossible if you want to bang out a four-hour shift in 20 minutes three days before it’s going to air. My preference whenever possible was to track on the same day. I did show prep the same way I would for a live shift. (The actual recording of the tracks took less time than the preparation.) It wouldn’t be live, but at least it would be lively, and it would sound like Madison on that day, to a certain degree, anyway.

Sean also cites cases in which even syndicated programming can provide a sense of place. I think about how “This is Casey Kasem in Hollywood” went a long way toward doing that for American Top 40. And I should make clear that I am not opposed to syndication. American Top 40 is the greatest syndicated success story in radio history. I’ve got no quarrel with stations running Delilah in the evenings or Coast to Coast AM overnight, or something else, in a daypart or two. But when your station becomes nothing but a 24/7 conduit for syndicated programming, what are you, exactly? What is your sense of place? How are you different from a direct stream from the syndicator, or from the Spotify algorithm? Are you actually from nowhere at all?

—I keep coming back to the line in iHeart’s press release about how the next step of their mission is “evolving how we program our stations to reward and develop our leading and up-and-coming talent.” But your “leading talent” isn’t just the handful of national brand names you have acquired, or the few smaller-market people corporate has deigned to notice. It’s also the people who spent decades in your small-market stations doing the service and creating the connections you say you want—and that sentence is a gratuitous swipe at them. And where is your “up-and-coming talent” going to up and come from? You’ve eaten most of your seed corn. Will your next big national star come from the one or two people left on your stations in places like Indy or St. Louis? Or are you gonna let other broadcasters put in the time and effort and expense of developing talent so you can swoop in and steal it?

Talk of rewarding and developing talent is driven by deeper financial truths.

—Commenter Chris wonders if iHeart’s “Guaranteed Human” slogan is a way of promising that the company won’t use AI jocks or play AI-generated music. The chairman and CEO of iHeart, Bob Pittman, has pledged that very thing—no AI jocks—and I’m sure he means it, right now. But when the day comes that his board of directors decides that the only way to continue maximizing shareholder value is to start using AI jocks, then AI jocks it will be.

—Commenter Charlie suggests that iHeart needs to read my piece from last week. But not only wouldn’t it change anything, the people in charge wouldn’t even understand its argument. Dick Taylor, who was a market manager for iHeart’s predecessor company, Clear Channel Communications, both before and after it was taken over by private equity, wrote about what happened to the company:

As a market manager, what I witnessed was control of the radio stations moving from the local management and people who lived in the market to a centralized system of control from the top. Decisions were driven by reviewing Excel spreadsheets prepared by people who never worked a day of radio in their lives or had any real understanding of how radio made money.

Ultimately, a business belongs to the people who own it, and they can do whatever they want with it. But iHeart ought to be clear about what they’re doing. They aren’t refining radio for a new era. They’re making something different that does not, and cannot, do what it used to.

For another perspective, I recommend Tyler Woodward’s podcast episode “The Day Local Radio Got Smaller.” He’s new to me, but clearly we are kindred spirits.

Strangers Come to Town

On June 26, 2026June 26, 2026 By jbIn Radio Tales5 Comments

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(Pictured: Radio management, as seen from labor’s point of view.)

If you listen to a radio station owned by iHeart Media, or a podcast produced or distributed by iHeart Media, you have heard their current slogan, “Guaranteed Human.” This has always made me want to set something on fire. In the last several years, iHeart has done more than any other company to take real live humans out of local radio stations and replace them with humans from elsewhere. Is a radio station in some small- to medium-sized market that carries nothing but nationally syndicated programming, shows produced in New York or LA or Nashville or San Antonio truly “human”? If it’s voicetracked by people hundreds of miles away?

Or is it a zombie, something that only looks alive and has no heart or soul?

We’re about to find out. After issuing a press release full of impenetrable Linked-In speak, iHeart began another of its mass executions of local radio talent this week, on a scale rivaling past bloodlettings in 2009 and 2020. From Radio Insight:

Many smaller markets including Atlantic City NJ, Cedar Rapids IA, Erie PA, Fort Collins CO, Springfield MO, and Spokane WA have lost all of their remaining local on-air talents. Even larger markets such as Indianapolis and St. Louis are now down to just a couple local hosts.

From iHeart’s release, quoted by Radio Insight:

Our business success is built on putting our listeners and our communities first— and in support of that mission, we’re now taking an important step that will move us further into the future: Evolving how we program our stations to reward and develop our leading and up-and-coming talent.

What sets us apart as a company is our dedication to creating new opportunities for our top personalities, making sure ‘Guaranteed Human’ is at the core of everything we do. Real voices and real talent strengthen our real connection and commitment to our communities.

I would call this bullshit, except that’s an insult to bulls. Manure is useful. This is fucking balloon juice. It’s like a game of Mad Libs.

The release also includes a soothing paragraph intended to make it possible for the occupants of the C-suite to look at themselves in the mirror while shaving in the morning and not cut their throats in shame:

While we will be creating new roles to support our future needs, we also recognize that some colleagues and existing positions will be impacted as part of these changes. We have given this a great deal of thought and do not take this step lightly; we are deeply grateful for the contributions of those affected, and we’re committed to supporting them through this transition.

Two weeks’ severance and COBRA, baby. Nothing’s too good for our people.

Following the press release, Radio Insight has a horrifying list of the markets and personalities being affected by the cuts, horrifying both in its length and in the number of long-tenured personalities now on the street. Nobody here in Madison lost their gig as far as we know at this writing, but at my old stomping grounds in the Quad Cities, three brand-name personalities are out: Pat Leuck, Dani Howe, and Mark Manuel. I know Pat a little, and I must have met Dani at least once; they took over mornings at their station about the time The Mrs. and I left the Quad Cities in the late 90s. I don’t know Mark Manuel personally, but he’s been a brand-name in a couple of Iowa markets and was also in Madison way back when. Whatever they were doing on the air on Monday is gone now, replaced by some sort of syndication, whether it’s a national show, out-of-market voicetrackers, or jockless programming, helmed by people who would need to be told that the Quad Cities are made up of Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa and Rock Island and Moline in Illinois (and other cities and towns adjacent), with a population of nearly half-a million.

Let me be as clear as possible about this next bit, and I apologize for shouting.

YOU CANNOT BE PUTTING YOUR LISTENERS AND COMMUNITIES FIRST, NOR CAN YOU CLAIM TO BE STRENGTHENING YOUR CONNECTION TO THOSE COMMUNITIES, IF YOU DEPRIVE THOSE LISTENERS AND COMMUNITIES OF THE LOCAL PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN SERVING THEM FOR DECADES AND REPLACE THEM WITH STRANGERS.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Programming Note: There will be three posts here over the July 4 weekend, and then we will begin a summer hiatus of indefinite length. Go play outside.