70 years of media

an excerpt from my media interview with Gblock...
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When Pairlee was a young girl during the post-depression years, radio was competitive with film. She remembers watching newsreels of WWII for a quarter, along with Roy Rogers and Gene Autry films.

She also used to sit and listen to the radio with her older brother. “I didn’t care about the news so much. I liked the mysteries that were on, and Fibber McGee and Molly, and Only the Shadow Knows. We used to sit and listen to those… oh lots, yeah,” she said.

In 1949, the same year 1 million Televisions were purchased in the United States, Pairlee was 13 years old when her family bought their first: a 12-inch Magnavox. She recalls watching under an hour a day. “One big thing that changed was somehow with watching television we started snacking, she said. “Before we never ever ate any food after dinner.”

NBC was the first broadcast station in Seattle, channel 5, according to Pairlee. She recalls watching Tom Brokaw deliver the news to her family every night, and around that time NBC had programming each night for only a couple of years. “There wasn’t a lot to choose from when you had only 1 channel.”

Politics wiggled its way on to Television screens in the early 60s. Pairlee believes that she became more involved in political affairs after watching the Kennedy/Nixon debate. “You get the truth more when you hear the words right out of their mouths,” she said. She was in bed with the mumps watching JFK’s assassination, and thought it was exciting to hear John Glenn recite Genesis 1 during the Apollo moon landing.

In 1962, 1 million color television sets were purchased in the United States, but Pairlee doesn’t remember purchasing one until the mid 80s.

The same year, 850 cable systems served 850,000 subscribers and Pairlee thought, “Why do we need more channels?” What Pairlee didn’t know is that the FOXNews cable channel would reign supreme in her living room over the NBC network. She favors anchors John Scott, Brit Hume and Shepherd Smith. “I only watch the local broadcast news at 5 p.m. We watch Fox cable news almost entirely,” said Pairlee.

A handful of years ago I nicknamed Pairlee “Gblock” because when Shepherd Smith refers to it he is indicating that it is the seventh and last block of the FOX Report and it is usually the segment in which he discusses entertainment and lighter stories. Pairlee has adopted the nickname, as seen posted when she leaves comments on my internet blog tagged with Gblock.

She also enjoys watching 24, Prison Break, NCIS, Alias and The Unit, owning several of the seasons on DVD. She owns about 50 DVDs and loves them because they don’t take up as much room as the VHS tapes.

Her movies became DVDs just like her radio became a stereo. “We got a stereo player which had records that showed it bounce off of one wall to the other.” After the transition she got rid of a huge cabinet of old long playing records about four years ago. “I love music. I like all the popular music: Johnny Mathis, The Imperials, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra.”

Although a huge step up from cassettes, CDs were short lived. “I just love all the improvements. No rewind, its wonderful, even with the DVDs.” But then came MP3s.

“At first I thought, ‘Oh brother, why do you need that?’” Pairlee loves her Ipod, though. “I have the nano. We have the hook up so we can play it in our car, the special new ear buds, and I’ve got an armband,” said Pairlee, “and the BOSE player so we can listen to it in our home.” She doesn’t use the CDs directly anymore. “I buy music online, download it, and back it up on CDs.” She has just under 600 songs in her library.

Music isn’t the only thing Pairlee buys online. “I do banking, I use the email, I shop… a lot of shopping.” She’s bought shoes, clothes, airline tickets, Christmas gifts and flowers for delivery. A year ago January she can now do all the shopping from her lap top computer with cable modem and wireless access. About 5 years ago is when she first used the internet and had an email account through hotmail. “I don’t know how I got along without it!”

Actually she does. She recalls party lines. Four different houses would use the same phone and everyone knew their own ring. “You picked the phone up and somebody would be on the line,” she said, “We didn’t sit and talk on the phone a lot.”

Later came answer machines and wireless landline phones and voicemail. “It helped me not miss any calls because I would take the phone outside with me when I was gardening.” Voicemail allowed her to not answer the phone if she was busy and Caller I.D. allowed her to decide if she wanted to answer or not. “Caller I.D. was great!” said Pairlee.

Last August, what used to be her home phone number is now her cell phone number. “I really like the cell phone, just the fact that I can get a hold of Grandpa if one of us is shopping or out,” she said. Her phone has internet access and she also uses her text messaging.

Pairlee has recognized that times have changed and are changing rapidly. Adapting to media through all the new technology has been fun and she’s enjoyed the perks. But with all of the options that allow us to have consistent interaction with the media, Pairlee said, “It seems like we almost get too much information.”