RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

Branko Karajkovic

THE MORNING PROGRAMME FROM THE OFF-PEAK PERIOD TO A DTNAMIC FUNCTION

- An introduction to a discussion, Radio Week 77, Ohrid Our own ехрепепсе as well as other people’s shows that there is no simpler name of more varied contents for one part of the programme than this one which we begin daily in the hours when few of us could daim that the world is quite as it should be. We refer to early morning radio programmes. The last few years have convinced us on many fronts that the moments of sleepy searching for our underwear, absentminded shaving and quick sips of tea аге in fact the starry moments of radio. We are told this by researchers of listeners’ moods, psychologists and editors of morning programmes. But I can already see a few thoughtful heads aghast at the evil spirit which apparently dedicates our job of vital social interest to morning racers who have lost their heads and commuters on loaded buses. Is there апу sense, they say, in telling such a creature anything more sensible than the weather forecast? Is there апу news more rapid for him than the correct time, especially if it is not wrongly read out? Despite the fact that there аге still such views on the morning programme, it is worth pointing out the fact that our radio stations have paid much more attention to this part of the programme than in previous years. The majority of novel programmes have been put on between 5.00 and 8.00 a.m., and the majority of proofs that radio as a whole is not only losing but is attracting new listeners are mainly concerned with this time. It is precisely thanks to the morning programmes that some of our radio stations аге attaining »the limit of their dreams« of the listening level... It is not easy to study all the reasons for this early morning phenomenon and it is even more difficult to establish to what extent we have succeeded in utilizing their optimal listening capacities considering the time of broadcasting, the programme contents and their adaptation to the needs and interests of listeners. Particularly in regard to the content and evaluation on the continuity of follow'ing the morning programme, our experience varies. Whde some claim that the task of the morning programme is of a working and psychologically therapeutic nature, with the addition of service and general information, others attempt, besides all this, to awaken the