The 1980s American Media Diet

In the modern era, the content we enjoy is an evolution of past media habits. How did American talk shows, radio, and news change in the 1980s?

Phil Donahue had been hosting his talk show Donahue since 1967, and it was billed as homemaker entertainment, popularizing the audience Q+A format and dealing with wide ranging topics from sexuality to drug abuse to feminism. It continued to be the most popular talk show into the eighties, until Oprah. In 1984, Oprah Winfrey’s low-rated 30-minute AM talk show became the highest-rated talk show in Chicago. Oprah signed a syndication deal, and The Oprah Winfrey Show debuted nationally on September 8, 1986. While the show would later come to be characterized by Oprah’s self-help journey, philanthropic causes, and book club, the early years were just as questionable as other forms of television called “trash tv.” She held shows on women having babies with their fathers, the satanic panic, and cheaters. In the early 1980s, TV stations wanted bigger audiences and cheaper forms of public affairs programming— especially thanks to the rising competition from cable channels like Fox, Lifetime, and USA. By the end of the decade, 60% of tv owners had cable. So for tv stations, cheap and spicy talk shows with taboo topics and questionable guests were the most profitable. As the number of talk shows increased, topics became wilder and more salacious. 

Talk shows became more about splashy tabloid journalism regarding sex, drugs, poverty, despair, and cheating, while also exploiting divisive issues like hate or little-understood issues like teen satanism. The titans of the talk show landscape also included Sally Raphael, who debuted in 1983, and Morton Downey Jr, a confrontational host and anti-abortionist who debuted in 1987, the same year that the FCC waived the fairness doctrine requiring television stations to provide an equal amount of left-leaning and right-leaning programming. Said the FCC commissioner, “We let the marketplace decide whether its in good taste or bad taste.” This hands-off government approach television content is glazed over by Reagan-loving social conservatives who complained about the programming available on TV. Morton liked yelling, blowing smoke in people's faces, and getting guests to turn up on each other, like the skirmish between Roy Innis and Al Sharpton I brought up in the last episode. His was the most extreme version of talk show television, and the novelty wore off. By 1989, Morton had lost his late night slot to newcomer Arsenio Hall. In April of that year, Morton, who was Jewish, claimed to be the victim of a neo-nazi attack at the San Francisco International airport. Numerous inconsistencies in Morton’s story led to revelations that the story was a hoax to generate attention for his faltering show, which was cancelled within three months.

But talk shows that didn’t go as far as Morton, who once slapped a guest, found more sustainable success. Geraldo, whose failed search of Al Capone’s vaults generated big ratings and got him his own talk show, was very successful. His topics tended to veer towards the serious, and despite sensationalizing the satanic panic and other phenomena, he covered important stuff like sexual harassment in the Navy. His fanbase was large and varied, including a black woman and retired Brooklyn nurse named Viola Neysmith who attended over 1,000 tapings of the show by the 1990s. 

During the episode in which Geraldo Rivera’s nose was broken, the producers had snagged teen non-racist skinheads, white supremacists including John Metzger, and conservative civil rights activist Roy Innis. The spectacle was a ratings goldmine and was one of many talk show specials featuring young and not-so-young hate mongers, who also appeared on Oprah.

The spectacle of dominative racists on talk shows counteracted clandestine examples of racism and microaggressions— giving the ability for the mildly or not so mildly racist housewife to sit in Oprah or Geraldo’s audience, for example, and feel relief that she is not one of the monsters on stage. Also, as detailed in Laura Grindstaff’s book The Money Shot: Trash, Class, and the Making of TV Talk Shows, producers very intentionally sought divisive topics and manipulated guests, even if they were very clearly mentally ill. While TV and print news publicized divisive topics and hateful figures, talk TV gave a forum to bored, lonely, and regular people seeking 15 minutes of fame— even if the fame required embarrassment or confrontation. Trash TV was a precursor to reality TV and social media influencer culture, but with relatable or comforting host guiding you through the most bizarre trends and people in America, asking questions to satisfy your curious mind.

Other kinds of media producers were also banking on the viewer’s curious mind, and looking for new ways to attract it. In the 1980s, the readership of daily newspapers fell from 73% to 50% and more Americans got their news from TV than ever before. Some newspapers fought back with editorial changes, while new papers like USA Today popped up in 1982. With color print, visual graphics, shorter articles, and more good news than bad, the paper cashed in on the glossy ambitions of Americans committed to viewing the Reagan administration, and the world around them, with rose colored glasses. It would eventually become the third ranked newspaper in the country. While print media was beginning to change, the industry itself was still powerful and lucrative compared to today. Reputable freelancers at Time Magazine, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times for example, were getting up to $10 a word for their articles and enjoying lavish expense accounts. Magazines were especially popular among women, with a 1986 directory of women’s media listing 331 women’s periodicals in America alone— compared to 131 just 11 years before.

Clearly, people were hungry for information- but how hungry? And what kind of info would satiate? In 1980, Ted Turner launched CNN, to tremendous skepticism because it promised to provide news 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Apart from a handful of established reporters like former NBC newsman Bernard Shaw, the company was largely employed by college students and graduates with little experience running TV production. When CNN launched on June 1st 1980, it had just 1.7 million subscribers, but two of the biggest advertisers: Procter and Gamble and General Goods. It took a while for the channel to find it’s footing. Though the studio’s expenses were twice what was projected and revenue was half of what was expected, the network covered a number of high-profile events in rapid succession. CNN attended both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions— and its 24-hour format allowed it to cover each event from multiple angles that other news programs didn’t have the time for. CNN also broke John Lennon’s assassination and was the first news station to confirm in 1981 that Reagan had indeed been shot and was in critical condition. In just two years, there were over 13.9 million homes with CNN, and by the end of the 80s CNN was in over 53.8 million homes. ABC, CBS, and NBC, or the “big three”, would come to launch their own late night news shows and other programming to capitalize on the appetite for round the clock news.

Stories like the 56-hour 1987 rescue of Midland,Texas infant Jessica McClure from a 22-foot well were covered from every angle imaginable, uniting Americans and making new mini-celebrities. Said Reagan of Baby Jessica, ”everybody in America became godmothers and godfathers of Jessica while this was going on.” During the last few minutes of her rescue saga, a whopping 3.1 million Americans were tuned into CNN, and millions more to other channels. Worldwide donations, at least $700,000 (including money from the Reagans), poured in for the 18-month-old, who whose experience would net a TV movie and a meeting at the White House. 

Elaborated The New York Times: "The Walt Disney Company sent a 5-foot-tall Winnie the Pooh, along with an invitation to visit Disneyland as their guest. The Federal Express box that brought the bear was signed by FedEx employees at every stop along the way. A well-wisher in Vienna sent a chocolate cake. Someone closer to home shipped Jessica a custom-made water bed. A Shar-Pei puppy, which she named Shirley, was also a gift. She received enough clothing to last until she was 5. She was [even] invited to the Vatican, for an audience with the Pope…” The McClure family’s fame and gifts would quickly turn their neighbors against them. Several rescuers and the McClures themselves got divorces, partly due to the strain from so much attention. The overnight fame of Jessica’s primary rescuer, Robert O Donnell, was so overwhelming that it was attributed to his 1995 death by suicide. After the rescue his phone rang non-stop, he made tv appearances, and he and other rescuers were torn apart by narrative infighting regarding the Jessica McClure movie. 

Because there was more news airtime, there was more conjecture and more fluff— as well as attention paid to a more diverse range of experiences and a new type of budding celebrity. Routine situations that became catastrophes or life experiences that became ensnared into 24-hour news fodder could give a once-anonymous person valuable fame, potential money, or unfathomable misery. Also, more people’s stories being profitable meant more capitalist interest. Increased media consolidation was set into motion in 1985 when both ABC and NBC were bought by Capital Cities Communication and General Electric, respectfully. Newspapers and radio stations were similarly snapped up in media consolidation deals, making more media, often sustained with money from various ethically compromised corporations, even more focused on profit over ethics or truth. Newspapers of record like New York Times and Washington Post stood out because they were owned by families and not taken over by outsiders, giving them more editorial freedom. Though these papers and other companies were by no means radical, they were often liberally leaning and increasingly tolerant of non-traditional positions and people. Along with even more moderate media companies, it was in this skewed media landscape that conservative voices grumbled and sought out alternatives. 

In the 1980s, the best way for a white conservative, especially in liberal strongholds, to hear ideas and language that were not the liberal “mainstream media” was by turning on A.M. radio. Many music stations moved to the higher quality FM radio, allowing AM talk to flourish with shock jocks like Howard Stern and political commentators. The openly racist, serophobic, and homophobic commentator Rush Limbaugh launched his talk radio show in 1984. He said and did a bunch, but one of his biggest blunders was falsely claiming that HIV/AIDS did not impact heterosexuals. He landed syndication in 1988, the same year that he embarked on the Rush To Excellence Tour, earning money and influence as a conservative commentator. An article described his enemies as "black activists, gay activists, abortion rights activists, homeless activists, animal rights activists, militant vegetarians, environmentalists, artists with erotic tendencies and, above all, "the NOW Gang."

Limbaugh’s show was hosted on nearly 300 radio stations across the country, and more conservative talk show hosts would follow in influence. In 1989, future Fox News commentator Sean Hannity was fired from a UC Santa Barbara volunteer radio station because he called HIV/AIDS a gay virus and said a bunch of other homophobic stuff I won’t repeat here. After being fired, he quickly publicized himself and landed new positions at conservative radio stations. While nazis and Klan members lacked overall cultural currency and widespread support, their soft counterparts in media would eventually repackage and filter many of their ideas for a wider audience. Much in the same way that radical beliefs of the 1960s were repackaged and filtered in the 70s and beyond.

Folded into the diet of constant news, thrilling talk shows, and patriotic symbolism sprinkled on everything by the Reagan administration was copaganda. Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, 21 Jump Street and many other police procedurals entertained, as TV shows are meant to do, but also promoted the rosy view that cops have high crime clearance rates, that police brutality is adequately addressed, and that police are generally selfless heroes who can overcome their own biases and flaws in an hour long program. Seeing the success of such shows, in 1988 TV writer Dick Wolf conjured a program called Law & Order because he wanted something optimistic about the American criminal justice system. Reality TV wouldn’t be far behind this slew of police procedurals. In 1989, the nubile cable channel Fox launched COPS. It primarily showed the arrests of Black and Latino people, as well as making light of mentally disturbed and unhoused people. It was immediately a hit for the network, garnering 8 million viewers an episode at it’s peak— and would air for thirty years.

Did you enjoy this brief tour of 1980s history? Check out the full episode, American Psyche!