I really enjoyed listening to Floyd Vivino's Italian-American Serenade for about 27 years in its first incarnation on WRTN (later WVIP) from New Rochelle, New York. Later, it briefly re-appeared on WVOX, but eventually, it became another casualty of the irrational, insane, idiotic reaction to Covid that destroyed life as we knew it. Of course, there were also Joe Farda and Nat Carbo, along with any number of other great Italian programs across the country through the decades. Many of those programs, including the Italian-American Serenade, were produced on a "leased-time" basis, which is a fancy way of saying that the host paid the radio station for the time instead of the other way around. That made it difficult to keep them on the air when times went sour-- not that keeping them on the air was easy even in good times. The producer of a leased time program either needs to be independently wealthy, or he needs to be a really good business man as much as a reasonably good entertainer in order to maintain an audience while selling advertising time on the program to pay the bills.
Basically, what I'm doing with the Italian Potpourri is to lease time from myself. That makes the business side a bit easier. AMSJR Audio 4 broadcasts the greatest instrumental pop music on a continuous basis, but every week, we'll be taking a little time out from that to share some really great Italian music with the audience. Having listened to classic Italian music for so long, I have a fairly good idea of what will make a decent Italian radio program. My program will never be as good as Floyd Vivino's program, because I'll be more of a presenter who stays mostly in the background, but I think that you'll find the Italian Potpourri to be a worthwhile addition to your Sunday routine. You don't even need to know Italian-- in fact, you might enjoy the music even more if you don't understand the Italian language! Join us every Sunday at noon Eastern time and 10 AM Mountain time for the greatest Italian music of the twentieth century, right here, on AMSJR Audio 4.