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FILE 072 · VOL XIII · You Were the Product
The Song Played 400 Times. You Were the Product.
You thought you chose the song. The station chose when you would need it.
Based on: Payola and Manufactured Radio Hits
Intake record
| Recovered from | Transmitter shack of a small FM station, outside Fresno, California |
|---|---|
| Contents | A 1959 program log, a metal box of index cards, eleven call-in recordings (transcribed), a bank deposit slip |
| Finder | Tower maintenance contractor |
| Status | Card box withheld. One card is still warm. |
| On the record | Real history is cited with numbered sources. Everything else, use your own judgment. |
Recovered file
Lena Morrow ran the overnight shift at a station so small the owner still called it a radio family. Midnight to six, alone in a cinderblock studio by the transmitter, playing whatever the computer told her to play and taking calls from truckers, nurses, and insomniacs.
In the supply closet, under a box of old promo T-shirts, she found the rotation box. A gray metal file box of index cards, each card a song title in fountain pen, the earliest dated 1958. The station's first owner had used it to plan which songs got played, and how often, back when a human being made that decision.
Taped inside the lid:
The rest of this file is sealed. The ending, the sources and the archivist's note unseal with the file.
Unseal File 072 ($2.99) · its volume · everything ($49.99)
Built on real, cited records. The stories are dramatized. Disclaimer · If you are in crisis in the U.S., call or text 988.