[BC] putting phone calls on the air

[Art Reed]

"Party Line" as discussed here before, was on the air from the mid 
fifties until Ed King's death in the early 70's, probably 1972.  The 
decision to paraphrase callers on the air was a deliberate one. The show 
aired from 10pm-2am and had a soothing, bedtime quality to it.  Ed and 
Wendy were both witty and erudite, and having callers on the air would 
have completely destroyed the mood and intellectual level of the show. 
As it was done, contributions to the show that were worthy made it on 
the air, and those that were disruptive were never even hinted at.  
Everyone went to bed listening to Party Line, and woke up to KDKA in 
morning drive. 

On the other hand, modern hybrid technology was definitely not available 
at that time.  We took our news feeds over the phone, but the technology 
used was the phone coupler, and the push-to-talk button in the handset. 
That was in 1973. 

Aristocart developed the Fone Box in 1980 or so, followed by the Telemix 
series of products for multiline use, promoted by Allied.  Mark 
Durenburger and Steve Church collaborated on that project, I believe.

The introduction of the Telos 10 in 1984, with its digital hybrid 
technology really lit the fuse on the rocket that sent talk radio into 
orbit.


Art Reed

dlh at donnahalper.com wrote:
> This is a semi-historical query.  I found an old clipping from January 
> of 1929 (!) wherein a Minneapolis/St Paul announcer successfully put 
> callers on the air.  I know that back then, the Federal Radio 
> Commission (later the FCC) did not permit phone calls to air-- I 
> thought it was because of technical problems that were not yet 
> resolvable in the 1920s, but also the FRC seemed to think phone calls 
> were "point to point communication" rather than mass communication.  
> Anyway, I was wondering when did radio stations begin putting callers 
> on the air on a regular basis?  I know that there was a KDKA talk show 
> with Ed and Wendy King in the late 40s or early 50s that had callers, 
> but the hosts had to paraphrase or repeat what the callers said rather 
> than put them on the air... so when did that all change, and what led 
> to the change taking place-- was it in fact improvements in technology? 
>