Customer Reviews

Monitor (Take 2): The revised, expanded inside story of network radio's greatest program

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As the subtitle indicates, Dennis Hart has revised and expanded his history of Monitor, the weekend radio program that ran on the NBC radio network for nearly twenty years, delighting millions of listeners.

Why a revision? Because after his first edition chronicled the venerable show's history, many old Monitor hands contacted him to share their experiences in helping produce Monitor. The result is a fuller, richer picture that lets Monitor fans feel like they are looking over the shoulders of these lucky broadcast professionals as they created hours upon hours of live radio programming in the '50s through the mid '70s--a time when radio meant something far beyond today's homogenized, plasticized, excruciatingly boring programming.

For Monitor was a revolution in its day. When it was developed by the great Pat Weaver, then NBC President, long form radio programming (i.e.; fifteen and thirty minute shows) was almost extinct, television having siphoned off the audience.

Weaver created Monitor, a magazine of the air that ran on weekends and saved the NBC radio network from extinction. Monitor combined news, music, interviews, features, sports, comedy, and live remotes to bring listeners an ever changing and totally entertaining format that engaged listeners in what was going on in the world around them.

To top it all off, it was hosted by a pantheon of broadcast legends like Dave Garroway, Gene Rayburn, Hugh Downs, Mel Allen, Bill Cullen, Henry Morgan, Frank Blair, Ed McMahon, and many others each of whom gave the show its distinctive flavor.

Monitor was a big idea that sounded big and it resulted in what became practically a national institution over its twenty year run. Many fans, including this author, still miss it to this day.

Frankly, it's a puzzle why Monitor isn't still running today, since radio sure could use the intelligent, dynamic programming that typified a Monitor weekend.

Maybe it's too much to think that Monitor could return to the radio waves today, but I'd wager that after readers finish Hart's affectionate history, they'll wish it were so.

Take 2 is indeed the expanded, inside story of Monitor. I was a newscaster on Monitor during its final years, working with many of the communicators who provide their own memories of this great radio service. Dennis Hart does a marvelous job of providing word pictures of the dedicated staff behind the scenes, besides the on-air people who kept Monitor on the air for almost 20 years

Dennis Hart's book is a wonderful look at an important and unfairly forgotten broadcasting innovation: NBC's MONITOR. One of Pat Weaver's great creations - along with TODAY & TONIGHT - the show pretty much invented the NPR model of broadcasting (specifically, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED). MONITOR provided NBC Radio, the nation's first and classiest radio network, a dignified and well-loved response to the triumph of television and the sad last days of network radio. MONITOR lives on in this gallant and fun-to-read book!

I purchased this book, first, because of my affectionate memories of NBC Monitor; second, because of its glowing reviews. The latter are not unwarranted: Hart has done his homework, as confirmed by many interviews with those who made the show happen. Hart's love for the subject glistens on every page. My dissatisfaction with the book lies in its lack of deep analysis. It is primarily a chronicle of the creation, rise, and fall of one of America's finest endeavors in broadcast journalism and entertainment. One could learn nearly as much by consulting the author's webpage on the subject--which is graced with photographs of the leading figures, none of which is reproduced in the book. Through no fault of the author, the book is suffused with elegy for a world that apparently no longer wants what Monitor uniquely provided: radio that brings us the world in its fullness with charity, wit, and intelligence. Requiescat in pace, Monitor. Your like we shall never see again.