At work noon

In the last years of the first and during the years of the second five-year plan, broadcasting in the Soviet Union was carried out in the morning from 6:00 to 8:00, then from 10:00 to 12:00 and in the evening from 18:00 to 24:00. Thus, the workers, getting ready for work, at lunchtime and in the evening hours of rest had the opportunity to listen to the radio. It was during these years that the popular radio program "At Work Noon" was born ^[2] .

Daytime peak coincided with a lunch break in enterprises and institutions. The growth in the audience of Soviet radio broadcasting was due to those people who listened to the concert “At Work Noon”, traditionally compiled at the request of workers ^[3] . The evening peak was due to the listeners' interest in international and intra-union information ^[4] .

Later, in the music editorial office of the All-Union Radio, the "Application Concert Division" was created. In those days, there was no live communication with the listeners, and the form of the dialogue - a letter-response - was necessary both to test the tastes of the audience and to increase the rating of the programs themselves. Letters and their number were the main indicator of the rating ^[5] .

The broadcast was in the format of a radio newspaper - concert at the request of workers: the announcer read out letters from the audience with greetings and congratulations. The music track was included at the request of workers. Soviet singers and composers, actors and writers, who acted as “postmen,” reading out letters from listeners, were invited to visit the presenter (presenter) in the studio. Sometimes the presenters themselves did field sessions of the program, arriving at the culture houses of production associations and enterprises. The meetings were recorded on radio equipment, then broadcasted for listeners of the whole country. Invited guests spoke to labor collectives and eagerly answered numerous questions. The systematic trips of radio groups to their listeners began in the early 1930s ^[6] .

The broadcast had a constant airtime — the time for a lunch break in most of the country ^[7] ; in some regions, if lunch did not coincide with the output of the program, in small industries this time could be changed to the detriment of the work schedule ^[5] . Initially, the program "On working noon" was conducted from 11:30 to 13:00 daily, except Saturday and Sunday ^[8] . The program was preceded by a concert of young performers (at the end of the program, a concert also began). Later, the broadcasting time was reduced to 30 minutes from 12:15 to 12:45. In the 1920s and 1930s, music was also broadcast from chamber music concerts. In the 1970s and early 1980s , trips of artists to Komsomol construction were in fashion, upon returning from which Alexander Pakhmutov and Nikolai Dobronravov , Mark Fradkin , Mikhail Plyatskovsky , Vladimir Shainsky , Joseph Kobzon , Lev Leschenko , Edita Pieha reported on the program. and many others ^[5] .

In the late 1970s, as part of the program, a concert section appeared, “Do you know these pieces?”, The essence of which was that a letter was read about a favorite piece of music, it sounded, but the listeners had to guess the name themselves. For clues, the presenters were told some interesting story related to this work. Basically, it was classical music and, contrary to the opinion that such music was not used by the Soviet audience, it was this section that for a long time remained the leading section of the program ^[5] .

In the Soviet years, under the name “Working Midday”, not only a radio broadcast was released - the trade union newspaper “Working Midday” was also published. Under the same name, traveling thematic hours were held with workers of enterprises and organizations of the USSR.

Over time, the name of the program became a kind of phraseological unit . In particular, the poet and rock bard Alexander Bashlachev in his song “The Scout's Feat”, talking about the hero who woke up from a hangover , sings: “I woke up standing up at work noon ...”, clearly playing out the name of the broadcast. Ilya Reznik wrote in a comic sketch: “And the whole country freezes when“ Workday is noon! ”

In the program “Morning with Vladimir Solovyov” at the Vesti FM radio station, the host told a joke about the program ^[9] :

Our listener Pyotr Sergeyevich Ivanov, an instrumental turner from Orel, asks us to play the song “ Valenki ” for him performed by Ruslanova ’s favorite. And the wonderful drummer of socialist labor, the noble farmer of the state farm on the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution, Zavkavpassky Oleko Dundich also asks for the song “Valenki”. And only an engineer Abramovich from Moscow wants to hear Beatles songs “ Hey Jude ”. That's what, Abramovich, do not show off, listen to “Valenki”!

According to the author and host of the program, Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation Lyudmila Dubovtseva, the superpopularity of the program even makes itself felt today - some modern commercial radio stations turn to this section on their initial path of reaching an audience ^[5] . In addition to radio stations, such programs include television channels in their broadcast program. So, for example, the eponymous transmission in a television format was broadcast on the 100 TV channel .

March 11, 1996, on the fourth channel of VGTRK Russian Universities , the first issue of the telecast “At Work Noon” was released, produced by Efrem Amiramov . The program came out daily, except weekends and holidays, covered all areas of public life, with the exception of politics. Since 1997, the program began to appear on the RTR television channel. After the success of “ Old Songs about the Main I ”, the leadership of the Russian channel tried to revive the famous broadcast “At Work Noon” in the television version. But having survived only a few broadcasts, due to financial difficulties that arose after the August 1998 crisis , work on the project was discontinued and the program disappeared from the broadcasting network due to a low rating. Her place was taken by the program about folk music “Outside the Outskirts” ^[10] .

Below is a series of projects similar in name or content to modern commercial radio stations that appeared after 1990:

• Field mail "Youth"