the history of radio
When people tuned their televisions to watch sports, weather, news, and entertainment during the first half of the 20th century, they heard what they were looking for, but, ironically, they “searched” for very little. This was radio, a stepping stone to what would eventually become television, and it had its own history.
However, those involved in its foundation did not know at the time what they were inventing. James Maxwell, for example, was one of the first to investigate electromagnetic fields, and in 1888 Heinrich Hertz succeeded in sending electromagnetic signals through space.
Perhaps the most significant early milestone was achieved by Guglielmo Marconi, who conducted several important tests with radio equipment in 1901 and later succeeded in sending a wireless signal across the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. Radio, in essence, was born on that day.
Hardly an exact science, it took a more structured form five years later when Lee De Forest arranged electronic signals in a vacuum tube, facilitating voice transmissions, and interest in both the device and its potential steadily increased.
Equipped with little more than a crude set sitting in his garage, for example, Doc Herald began broadcasting three years later and helped others build crystal sets with the knowledge he had accumulated thus far. Numerous fans quickly followed suit.
The first organization to exploit this innovation was the American Marconi Company. Spearheaded by David Sarnoff, who first served as its messenger and eventually worked his way up to become its executive, it was able to broadcast within a 50-mile radius, bringing entertainment to homes within this area in 1916 and replacing what previously it had been little more than amateur-led “talks” given by “tinkerers” with crude sets.
However, the ability to reach so many with a single device soon signaled the potential for radio equipment manufacturers such as Westinghouse, General Electric, and AT&T. Pooling their patents, they bought the American Marconi Company and formed the Radio Corporation of America, or RCA.
The first split within it occurred when Westinghouse and General Electric used their patents to manufacture transmitting and receiving equipment, while AT&T concentrated on telephone communications. However, the most successful of the original three, the last one demonstrated the impact communication could have when a Long Island real estate firm offered him $100, then a hefty sum, to spread the word about the houses they had available for sale. sale for ten minutes of airtime, and the response from listeners was overwhelming. Radio advertising was born.
Setting it on a path to unprecedented growth, AT&T went independent and formed its own station, WEAF, connecting it with Boston radio station WNAC in 1923. It was only the beginning of its network of affiliations and reach.
Still forming the other half of RCA, Westinghouse and General Electric, mindful of their partner’s growth, followed suit, forming their own station, WJZ. However, since they received no advertising support for the company, it barely limped along for two years until AT&T sold them their own WEAF station in 1926, allowing the combined company of Westinghouse and General Electric to become the National Broadcasting Company. or NBC. which owned half of the shares, while the original RCA owned the other half.
Reflecting their broadcast areas in the US, a graph with red or blue lines indicated the cities to which WEAF and WJZ respectively broadcast.
With success came monopoly and federal government intervention. Viewing the arrangement as anticompetitive, the government itself forced NBC to sell its blue broadcast network, divesting its station WJZ, which later became the American Broadcasting Company, or ABC.
A third independent network, soon controlled by William S. Paley, was formed the following year, CBS.
What started as a hobby for hobbyists grew into a multi-corporate business with incredible reach. But, due to the extensive use of radio waves, demand soon exceeded capacity, and overloaded use of the system often resulted in unclear transmissions, with one station overlapping others.
Although Congress had anticipated this dilemma when it created the Radio Act of 1912, its solution of requiring station licenses for all transmitters did little to improve the overloaded use of the system, since the license was easy to acquire and offered no operational restrictions. .
While conditions improved when a separate license category was created for commercial broadcasting companies, President Hoover went a step further by determining which radio stations would have access to the air and which would not.
The act, of course, generated controversy and was declared unconstitutional. Eugene F. McDonald, for example, owner of station WJAZ in Chicago, claimed that the president had exceeded his authority in making such determinations, prompting the subsequent Radio Act of 1927, which argued that broadcast services could only be provided by private companies and that the public itself would determine the types of programs it wished to listen to.
Although it overcame most of the early hurdles, the final Communications Act of 1934 was eventually established.
The “control” during these nascent times, however, was often more subtle. Sponsors and advertising agencies, for example, needed to reach as many listeners as possible to ensure maximum sales of their products, but felt that this exposure depended on the quality of the programs with which they were associated. If they paid stations for advertising time and coincidentally aired poor quality shows, they felt that the number of people reached would decrease as they turned the dial for better features and that the shows themselves reflected their products and services. services. As a result, they were able to exercise some control over the production and arrangement of a program.
During the 1930s, radio and the publicity it attracted prospered. Three great stations brought news, information and entertainment to millions of people across the country who only needed to turn a dial to access them.
The basis for many later popular television mysteries, comedies, adventures, teens and even soap operas, such as “When a Girl Marries”, “Mary Noble, Backstage Wife”, “I Love a Mystery”, “Gangbusters” and “The Shadow”, was placed during this time, while these venues allowed many early actors and actresses to gain their initial exposure.
Radio became the mainstay of American entertainment for about two decades, until another emerging technology, television, appeared in the 1950s, offering audio and visual aspects. However, it was both the beginning and the future, as it continues to serve the purpose for which it was created: to provide the information and entertainment that listeners want to hear.
