Comments on: Live from the Grand Ole Opry

By: Eleanor Patterson

Eleanor Patterson — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 15:53:39 +0000

Kyle, you make a good point about hybrid liveness on shows like PHC. Given the number of places that delay broadcast PHC, and offer one or two repeat broadcast on Sundays, I guess I wonder how liveness becomes part of the show’s aesthetic, conveyed more by sonic elements than whether or not it is actually live, and I wonder whether that matters to audience members. Do you listeners care if it is live? Do they assume it is, if tuning in for the first time? I don’t know the answer to these questions, but I think they point to ways radio and the way it offers the affordance of simultaneity can be conflated.

By: Kyle Conway

Kyle Conway — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 14:43:35 +0000

Eleanor — I look forward to seeing what you have to say about [em]Nashville[/em]’s depiction of radio and liveness, especially as an index of how the show’s producers (and, in a different way, the Grand Ole Opry’s producers) understand “liveness.”

Just a note of clarification (which doesn’t take away from your post) — [em]Prairie Home Companion[/em] is in fact broadcast live (i.e., without tape delay) when it first airs on Saturday afternoons. Garrison Keillor performs the show at 5:00 in the Eastern Time Zone, 4:00 in Central, and 3:00 in Mountain. (I have never attended a performance in Pacific, but, well, let’s just say I know the other times from experience.) Of course, American Public Media does syndicate the show, too (especially on Minnesota Public Radio, which plays it twice on Sundays!). So its a more hybrid liveness.

By: Eleanor Patterson

Eleanor Patterson — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 03:17:52 +0000

Thanks Taylor – liveness in broadcasting is definitely something I want to explore more, and so double thanks for the recommendations!

By: Taylor Cole Miller

Taylor Cole Miller — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 18:17:50 +0000

Great article, Nora! I love thinking about liveness and how it legitimates a real experience … a “legitimacy of liveness” if you will. In Lynn Spigel’s chapter from _Private Screenings_, she talks more about the ideology of liveness with early television which might be helpful moving forward with this work. She actually concludes that there is not much work done on liveness and an aesthetics of the real. You might also look at Jane Feuer’s “The Concept of Live Television: Ontology as Ideology” in _Regarding Television_ … even though your work is on radio, they could overlap nicely.

Brava!