him creative control over it, particularly regarding selections of music. Reception Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that the film "turns into a preposterously self-serving variation on 1960s' themes" and that the central problem in the plot "is certainly a real one, for rock radio stations everywhere. But Ezra Sacks's screenplay manages, by taking this crisis so very, very seriously, not to take it seriously at all." Variety called the film "the modern equivalent of the 1930s newspaper film, all break-neck dialog, quirky happenstances and behind-the-scenes drama transposed to a 1970s rock radio station. Unlike such classics as the original 'Front Page,' however, this Universal release goes nowhere with a potentially-fascinating set of plot elements." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 1.5 stars out of 4 and found "little reason to care" about the plot, as the sales manager "is a caricature that belongs on a TV variety show" and the "miserable deejays... do their best to make you want to switch stations. Unfortunately, you can't switch stations in a movie theater. All you can do is leave." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times declared it "Fairly Mediocre" and "such claptrap silliness that only the tender in years and soft in mind are apt to be enraptured." Gary Arnold of The Washington Post panned the film as "a shallow attempt at rabble-rousing comedy" which "flounders in smarmy virtue" and "tries to be hip in all the worst ways." John Pym of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote that the movie's central premise rests on the idea "that commercial, pop-music radio stations were not primarily created to generate advertising revenue, and that the people who put on the records and ad-lib between the jingles are folk heroes, free from the exigencies of the business world, members of that select cinematic breed of American independent professionals. Ezra Sacks' attenuated script, which alternates between episodes of jovial high jinks and moments of melancholy self-indulgence, fails to acknowledge the practical implications of this premise (namely that, without advertising, these 'creative' broadcasters would be out of work) and instead makes the army salesman a ludicrously over-drawn figure of fun and Regis Lamar a sycophantic yes-man." Rolling Stone magazine considered the music heavily biased towards musicians who had been managed by Irving Azoff, the head of MCA Records at the time. The film holds a score of 20% on Rotten Tomatoes