RADIO

About 8,000 commercial radio stations nationwide went silent for 30 seconds Friday to kick off the largest simultaneous promotion in the history of radio--a $100-million advertising campaign aimed at highlighting what life would be like without radio. At 7:42 a.m. EDT, actor James Earl Jones told listeners that “for the next 30 seconds this station and others would like you to imagine your life without radio. Imagine if all your days sounded like this. . . . “ The following 30 seconds were filled with silence. Jones then cut in and said, “Thirty seconds seems like a long time, doesn’t it? Now think how radio fills that silence for you.” About 80% of the nation’s commercial stations participated in the opening stage of theyearlong campaign, the Radio Advertising Bureau said. The campaign reportedly represented the first industry-wide effort to promote the medium since the first commercial radio station signed on in 1922.