RADIO:
Empire of the Air
An Innovative Medium
 Radio established the foundations of
today’s broadcast industry:
 patterns of ownership and control
 the genre model of programming
 models for newsgathering and electronic
journalism
 an example of how the function and format of
a mass medium can change in order to survive
Technological Inventions
 Telegraph (1840s) and telephone (1870s)
 Hertz: proved that electricity emitted
electromagnetic waves that could
carry sound (1880s)
 Marconi: invented wireless
telegraphy (1894) -- used code,
not voice
 established British Marconi
(1897) and American Marconi (1899)
Technological Inventions
 Fessenden: first to broadcast
human voice on radio waves
(1906)
 DeForest: invented Audion
vacuum tube (1907 )
 sold patent to AT&T
Early experimental
radio stations (1910s)
 educational,
communityoriented
 Some at colleges
and universities
Amateurs: ham operators
(1906-WWI)
 put together their own receiving sets; attempted
to tune in shipping messages and to transmit
their own messages
 similar to today’s computer hackers and
cyberpunk cultures--on the cutting edge of new
technology
 created a great deal of static and interference
on the airwaves by their growing numbers
Majority of patents were held by:
 General Electric (GE)
 Westinghouse
 AT&T
Major users of the new technology:
Shipping Industry
US Navy
Radio gets regulated:
Acts of Congress
 Wireless Ship Act of 1910
 to protect ship passengers
 gave the radio industry a boost in sales
 Radio Act of 1912
 Gave U.S. Dept. of Commerce the power to license
private broadcasters and set guidelines for
frequencies and power
 Radio Act of 1927
 established Federal Regulatory Commission (FRC)
to regulate all forms of radio communication
After WWI, the real struggle to
control the radio industry began
 U.S. Navy seized American Marconi
stations to eliminate foreign interests
 Amateur Radio League opposed
Navy's control
 U.S. Government wanted to eliminate
disputes between GE, Westinghouse,
and AT&T
RCA
creates American supremacy
in communications technology
 Nationalistic -- no foreign
companies allowed
 Marconi forced to sell
transmitters, stations, and patents
to RCA
David Sarnoff
and the Battle over FM Radio
 Edwin Armstrong invented a feedback circuit
in 1913; he would use this to develop FM
radio in the `20s and `30s.
 Sarnoff, head of RCA, fearing that enhanced
radio would block the development of TV,
acquired but did not use FM technology.
 Armstrong killed himself in 1954.
 By the 1960s, both TV and FM were
flourishing.
The Golden Age of Radio
 Radio held a central position in most
households through the 1930s and 1940s,
offering most of the program types we now see
in television:
 drama
 comedy
 mystery
 variety
War of the Worlds (1938)
 Explosions on Mars
 Meteorite Lands in New Jersey
 The Martians Are Here!
 New Jersey in Flames
How Radio influenced
TELEVISION
 single sponsorship system of commercial
radio
 program segmentation and format
 liveness: real time, sense of immediacy-tradition of broadcast news and sports
 continuing characters-->identification and
attachment
HOW DID RADIO RE-INVENT
ITSELF in the television age?
 Alliance with music recording
industry
 Rise of FORMAT and Top 40 radio
(age of the disk jockey)
 National network radio programming
 Growth of TALK RADIO
 Internet Radio