7
Sound
Music and Talk
Across Media
The Development of the
Recording Industry
• Thomas Edison:
 invented the
phonograph in
1877
 first recording,
“Mary Had a Little
Lamb”, lasted 10
seconds
• Emile Berliner:
 invented the
gramophone by
1888
 utilized flat disks,
provided more
lifelike recordings
 first to envision
idea of royalties
Development of the Recording Industry (cont.)
• high fidelity—refers to a combination of
technologies that allowed recordings to:
 reproduced music more accurately
 have higher high notes and deeper bass
• magnetic tape industry standard by 1949
• recording allowed for preservation:
 non-notated music—music that does not exist in
written form
Transmitting Music and Talk:
The Birth of Radio
• Samuel Morse:
 invented the telegraph in
1844
• Heinrich Hertz:
 experimented with
radio waves in
1888
 created a simple
transmitter and
receiver
• Guglielmo Marconi:
 developed the
wireless telegraph
Transmitting Music and Talk
(cont.)
• Reginald Fessenden:
 started sending voice
signals over a radio in 1901
 broadcasted Christmas
carols and poetry in 1905
• David Sarnoff:
 American Marconi
employee
 in 1915, wrote the Radio
Music Box memo
• radio as a popular
mass medium
• essentially ignored
• focus was on support
of United States in
World War I
Transmitting Music and Talk
(cont.)
• Frank Conrad
(Westinghouse):
 began broadcasting music
on Sunday afternoons
 Westinghouse built a more
powerful transmitter
 released a broadcast
schedule
 goal was to get people to
buy radios
 KDKA was
licensed on
October 27,
1920
Radio Advertising
• WEAF in New York City:
 first to sell air time to
advertisers
• Secretary of Commerce
Herbert Hoover:
 believed ads would destroy
credibility of radio news
• Sales of radios thought to
be main revenue source
• Early executives realized
advertising revenue
necessary
Radio Networks
• In 1923 more than 600
radio broadcast stations in
the United States:
 provided limited
programming in a localized
area
• Sarnoff’s idea of a network:
 could provide more
programming to a wider
group of stations
• RCA established NBC July
22, 1926:
 actually two networks, Red
and Blue
Radio Networks (cont.)
• William Paley
 interested in promoting
family cigar business on
radio:
 purchased United
Independent Broadcasters
(UIB)
• renamed Columbia
Broadcasting System
(CBS)
 Paley understood the vital
role of advertising
From the Golden Age to the
Television Age
• Golden age of radio—1920s, 1930s, and 1940s
 Radio the primary form of entertainment
• Live music, dramas, action programs
• Start of soap operas
 first programs targeted specifically at women
 The Guiding Light started in 1937
From the Golden Age to the Television Age (cont.)
• Amos ‘n’ Andy (1926):
 First nationally broadcast daily drama
 Story of Sam and Henry, owners of Fresh Air Taxi Co.
• Sam and Henry were African American characters
• roles played by two white actors—Charles Correll and
Freeman Gosden
• program controversial, but did portray middle class
African Americans at a time when such portrayals not
common
Radio News
• KDKA broadcast the results of the 1920 election
• Newspapers threatened by radio, in 1930s:
 threatened to cut off radio’s access to AP wire service
 threatened to stop printing radio program listings
• Live news was radio’s advantage:
 brought immediacy and broke stories.
 Edward R. Murrow’s 1939 reporting during the
German bombing of London
The BBC: Voice of the Old Empire
• British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) :
 created as a public service in the 1920s
 during World War II, broadcast in more than 40
languages
 strong international reach
 utilization of a variety of technology
• Webcasting, FM stations, and satellite services
Akio Morita’s “Personal
Soundtrack”
• Sony Walkman introduced in 1979:
 two versions - tape player or a stereo FM radio
 initial cost upward of $200
• Some enjoyed the personal privacy provided
• Others argued it initiated a withdrawal from society
• Model for modern portable music (iPods, etc.)
Rock ‘n’ Roll and the Integration of
Music
• During World War II, Armed Forced Radio played
wide variety of music
• Race records—pre-1948 recordings by popular
black musicians
 1949, referred to as rhythm and blues by Billboard
• Wynonie Harris
 on December 28, 1947, recorded “Good Rockin’
Tonight” in Cincinnati, Ohio
 considered the first rock ‘n’ roll recording
• Elvis Presley
• Chuck Berry
• Rock ‘n’ Roll (cont.)
• Dewey Phillips (WHBQ in Memphis):
 on October 29, 1949, started Red Hot ‘n’ Blue
 played R&B records
• Berry Gordy Jr.:
 founded Motown Records
 promoted black artists and their music
 sold to Boston Ventures for $61 million in 1988
The British Invasion: A Rougher
Rock
• Began in 1964
• British interpretation of American rock ‘n’ roll sound
• Beatles:
 by 1966, found it impossible to play live
 1967—recorded Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club
Band
• concept albums—brought together a group of related
songs on common themes
• designed to be played from beginning to end
• The Growing Importance of Producers
 producers as significant as the recording artists:
• Rick Rubin
• Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds
• Alan Parsons
• Country: Pop Music for Adults
 originally called old-time or hillbilly music
 became popular in 1950s and 1960s in Nashville
 songs deal with real life issues
Making Money In
The Recording Industry
• Long-playing record (LP):
 developed by Columbia Records in 1948
 labeled unbreakable; provided 23 minutes of music
per side
 demonstrated to RCA and Sarnoff; RCA stuck with 45
format
• 45-rpm disc:
 RCA’s format
 provided four minutes of music per side
 affordable and popular with teens
• By 1950, LP the standard (minus RCA)
Making Money in the Recording Industry (cont.)
• Compact Discs and Digital Recording:
 Klaas Compaan began work on CD in 1969
• Philips Electronics physicist
 Philips joined with Sony to create a standard format:
• Wanted to avoid another format war (LP versus 45)
 The CD launched in Europe in 1982; in the United
States in 1983
Making Money in the Recording Industry (cont.)
• Digital recording—a method of recording sound
that involves storing it as a series of numbers:
 no degradation in reproductions
 impacts sales of original recordings
• Music on the Internet:
 MP3 (Moving Picture Experts Group audio layer 3)
• compressed format, easy to share
 allows for new artists to get attention
 music industry concerned about copyright violations
• The Problem of Payola
 Payola—payoffs to disc jockeys in the form of money
or gifts so they will play a particular record
 Alan Freed:
• fired from WABC on November 21, 1959
• failed to sign a statement saying he had not participated
in payola scandal
 Dick Clark:
• shifted career to television music shows
The Business of Radio
• Popular Radio Formats:
 2006—country music most popular format in the
United States
• Carried on 12.5 percent of stations
 News/talk—10.4 percent
 Adult contemporary—7.1 percent
 Classic rock—4.9 percent
• Spanish-Language Broadcasting
 2006—more than 700 Spanish-language stations
 strong support from advertisers
The Business of Radio (cont.)
• Talk Radio—Politics, News, Sports, and Shock
Jocks
 1985, only 200 stations carried the format; by 1995,
more than 1,000
 major source of political information to 44 percent of
Americans
 Shock Jocks:
•
•
•
•
Opie and Anthony
Todd Clemm
Don Imus
Howard Stern - Moved to satellite broadcasting in 2006
Radio Consolidates and Goes
Hi-Tech
• Telecommunications Act of 1996




relaxed broadcast radio ownership rules
led to more concentrated ownership
2003—number of owners fell 35 percent
2006—50 percent owned by major media companies
• National Public Radio (NPR)
 1967 Public Broadcasting Act
• set aside lower end of FM dial for non-commercial
broadcasts
 went on the air in 1971—All Things Considered
 allowed for in-depth coverage
 16 percent of budget comes from federal government
• remaining comes from donations and sponsorship
• Radio’s New Look—HD and Satellite
 90 percent of American listen to terrestrial radio every
week
 High definition radio:
• expensive, equipment not readily available in 2007
 Satellite Radio:
• monthly subscription
• XM and Sirius merge in 2007
• provides quality reception despite location
Music and the Long Tail—
Alternatives to Broadcasting
• Webcasting:
 Internet sites, Apple’s iTunes player
 greatly extends the reach of stations
• Podcasting:
 audio programs recorded as MP3 files
 any MP3 player will work; Apple iPod has a huge
share of market
 August 2006—12 percent of Internet users had
downloaded a podcast
New Economic Models for
the Music Industry
• Computer technology allows for easy piracy.
• In 2006, CD sales declined by nearly 5 percent:
 Sales of downloads increased by 65 percent from
2005.
• Overall, music sales increased 19 percent in 2006 .