CHAPTER 5

Popular Radio and the Origins of

Broadcasting
Radio Today
• Radio is constantly evolving

• Expansion and migration to wireless environment

• Radio reaches 92% of Americans eighteen and

older each week
How We Got Here: The Early Development of
Radio (1 of 7)
• Telegraph: precursor of radio technology
• Invented in 1840s
• First developed by American inventor Samuel Morse
• Morse code: series of dots and dashes that stand for letters
of the alphabet
• Ran coast to coast by 1861

• Although it was revolutionary, the telegraph had

limitations
• Unable to transmit the human voice
• Ships at sea could not use it to communicate with the rest of
the world
How We Got Here: The Early Development of
Radio (2 of 7)
• James Maxwell
• Theorizes the existence of electromagnetic waves—invisible
electronic impulses similar to visible light (1860s)
• Proved that electricity, magnetism, light, and heat are part of the
same electromagnetic spectrum and radiate in space at the
speed of light
• Believed that a portion of these, later known as radio waves, could
be harnessed to transmit signals

• Heinrich Hertz
• Proved Maxwell’s theories (1880s)
• Advanced the development of wireless communication
Figure 5.1: The Electromagnetic Spectrum
How We Got Here: The Early Development of
Radio (3 of 7)
• Guglielmo Marconi
• Received a patent for wireless telegraphy—a form of voiceless point-
to-point communication—in England in 1896

• Alexander Popov
• Made parallel discoveries in Russia; sent and received wireless
messages in May 1895

• Nikola Tesla
• Invented a wireless system in 1892
• Marconi used much of Tesla’s work, and for years Tesla was not
associated with the invention of radio
• In 1943, Supreme Court overturned Marconi’s wireless patent and
deemed Tesla the inventor of radio
How We Got Here: The Early Development of
Radio (4 of 7)
• Lee De Forest
• Wrote the first Ph.D. dissertation on wireless technology in 1899
• Wireless telephony: wireless voice and music transmission
• Biggest breakthrough was the development of the Audion
vacuum tube, which detected radio signals and amplified them

• Reginald Fessenden
• Engineer who worked for General Electric, improving wireless
signals
• First voice broadcast in 1906

• Broadcasting: transmission of radio waves to a broad public

audience
How We Got Here: The Early Development of
Radio (5 of 7)
• Charles “Doc” Herrold
• Began a station in 1909 that later became KCBS

• Radio waves as a safety measure and natural resource

• Wireless Ship Act of 1910 required wireless equipment
on seagoing ships
• Radio Act of 1912 required stations to be licensed

• World War I
• Navy took control of radio
• Corporate heads and government leaders conspired to
make sure radio served American interests
How We Got Here: The Early Development of
Radio (6 of 7)
• Radio Corporation of America (RCA): acquired
American Marconi and radio patents of other U.S.
companies
• With its patent-pool arrangement, RCA took the lead
in expanding American communication technology
throughout the world

• RCA became a monopoly

• Gave United States almost total control over
broadcasting
How We Got Here: The Early Development of
Radio (7 of 7)
• Great Britain develops British Broadcasting Corporation
in 1922

• BBC funded by household licensing fees

The Evolution of U.S. Radio (1 of 11)
• Frank Conrad
• Westinghouse engineer who set up a crude radio station
above his Pittsburgh garage; unofficially one of the
medium’s first disc jockeys
• Westinghouse executive intrigued by Conrad’s hobby
realized potential of radio as a mass medium;
Westinghouse established the first commercial broadcast
station, KDKA, in 1920

• In 1921, the U.S. Commerce Dept. licensed 5 radio

stations for operation; by 1923, more than 600
commercial and noncommercial stations were operating
The Evolution of U.S. Radio (2 of 11)
• AT&T broke RCA agreements in 1922 in attempt to
monopolize radio
• Began making and selling its own radio receivers
• Started WEAF, the first radio station to regularly sell
commercial time to advertisers
• Created the first radio network
• GE, Westinghouse, and RCA created their own radio
group in response
The Evolution of U.S. Radio (3 of 11)
• David Sarnoff
• RCA’s first general manager
• Created NBC, which was shared by RCA, GE, and
Westinghouse
• Original telephone group became known as the NBC-
Red network
• Radio group became known as the NBC-Blue network
The Evolution of U.S. Radio (4 of 11)
• NBC affiliates
• Paid NBC to carry their programs; in exchange, NBC
reserved time slots in programming, which it sold to
national advertisers
• Emphasized national programming as opposed to
local and regional
The Evolution of U.S. Radio (5 of 11)
• Government scrutiny ends RCA monopoly
• FTC charges RCA with violations of antitrust laws in 1923
• RCA proposes buying out GE’s and Westinghouse’s
shares in RCA’s manufacturing business
• Government accepts RCA’s breakup proposal days before
trial (1932)

• Meanwhile, Sarnoff works to extend RCA-NBC’s position

• Cuts a deal with GM to manufacture car radios
• Merges RCA with the Victor Talking Machine Company
The Evolution of U.S. Radio (6 of 11)
• Among the NBC networks’ competitors in the late 1920s,
CBS stands out
• First attempt at CBS fails, but it becomes the top network in
1949

• William Paley
• Buys a controlling share in the fledgling company and launches
new concepts and strategies
• Hires PR guru Edward Bernays to polish company image
• Introduces option time, in which the network pays affiliate stations
$50/hr for an option on a portion of their time
• Raids NBC for top talent
The Evolution of U.S. Radio (7 of 11)
• With no restrictions on operation, hundreds of stations
clog the airwaves in 1926, causing poor reception

• Radio Act of 1927: stated that stations could only

license their channels as long as they operated to serve
the “public interest, convenience, or necessity”

• Federal Radio Commission (FRC): created to oversee

licenses and negotiate channel problems

• Communications Act of 1934: established the Federal

Communications Commission in place of the FRC
The Evolution of U.S. Radio (8 of 11)
• Federal Communications Commission (FCC):
jurisdiction covered radio, telephone, telegraph, and
later television, cable, and the Internet

• Activist FCC went after the networks in 1941

• Outlawed the practice of option time
• Demanded that RCA sell one of its two NBC networks
• NBC-Blue was sold and became the American
Broadcasting Company (ABC)
The Evolution of U.S. Radio (9 of 11)
• Early on, there were only a handful of stations
operating in most large radio markets

• Early programming included live music daily and 15-

minute evening programs
• Variety shows
• Quiz shows
• Dramatic programs

• Most programs had a single sponsor

The Evolution of U.S. Radio (10 of 11)
• Radio programming acts as a cultural mirror
• The most popular comedy by the 1930s was Amos ’n’ Andy
• Featured stereotypes of Black characters and was clearly racist
• Launched idea of the serial show
• Moved to TV and was first show with an entirely Black cast
• Canceled in 1953 amid strengthening Civil Rights movement

• Pioneers of Black radio pushed the boundaries of mostly white

radio broadcasts
• WSBC in Chicago began The All-Negro Hour in 1929
• In 1947, WJJD aired Here Comes Tomorrow, the first-ever soap
opera with an all-Black cast, featuring stories about a typical Black
Chicago family
The Evolution of U.S. Radio (11 of 11)
• War of the Worlds
• Broadcast by Orson Welles on Halloween eve in 1938
in style of a radio news program
• Supposedly created a panic in New York and New
Jersey
• Contemporary studies suggest that newspapers
exaggerated the extent of the panic
• Prompted the FCC to call for stricter warnings before
and during programs imitating the style of radio news
Radio Reinvents Itself (1 of 4)
• Radio adapted and survived the arrival of television with
adaptive innovations in technology and program content
• Transistors: small electrical devices that receive and
amplify radio signals
• More durable and less expensive than vacuum tubes, they
used less power and produced less heat
• Led to the creation of small pocket radios
• Made radio portable
Radio Reinvents Itself (2 of 4)
• FM (frequency modulation) radio
• Discovered and developed by Edwin Armstrong in the
1920s and 1930s
• Greater fidelity and clarity than AM radio
• Lost RCA’s support to TV
• Accentuated the pitch, or distance, between radio waves
• FCC opened up spectrum space for FM in the 1960s
• Surpassed AM radio by the 1980s

• AM (amplitude modulation) radio

• Stressed the volume, or height, of radio waves
Radio Reinvents Itself (3 of 4)
• When TV came along and took radio’s program ideas
and sponsors, radio’s dependence on music helped it
survive the 1950s

• Format radio: formula-driven radio

• Developed by Todd Storz in 1949
• Management controls programming
• Rotation: playing top songs many times during the day
• Top 40 format: practice of playing the 40 most popular hits
in a given week as measured by record sales
• Creation of the program log and day parts
Radio Reinvents Itself (4 of 4)
• Expansion of FM in the mid-1960s created room for
experimentation
• Progressive rock: alternative to conventional formats
• Experimental stations offered hard-edged political folk
music and protest rock
• Album-oriented rock (AOR): tamed variation of
progressive rock
The Sounds of the Contemporary Radio
Environment (1 of 4)
• Listeners today are unlike radio’s first audiences
• Radio has become a secondary, or background,
medium
• Peak listening time is now drive time rather than prime
time
• Drive time: between 6 and 9 A.M. and between 4 and 7
P.M.
• Stations today are more specialized
The Sounds of the Contemporary Radio
Environment (2 of 4)
• Variety of formats
• News/talk: radio stations dominated by news
programs or talk shows; appeals to adults over age
thirty-five
• Several music formats for different tastes
Figure 5.3:The Most Popular Radio
Formats in the United States among
Persons Age Six and Older
The Sounds of the Contemporary Radio
Environment (3 of 4)
• Early years of nonprofit radio
• In 1948, the government begins authorizing noncommercial
licenses and approves 10-watt FM stations
• Pacifica Foundation: formed to run experimental public
stations that often challenge the status quo
• Started by radio reporter and pacifist Lewis Kimball Hill

• First noncommercial networks

• Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 and the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting (CPB)
• National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service
(PBS) are created to provide alternatives to commercial broadcasting
The Sounds of the Contemporary Radio
Environment (4 of 4)
• Internet radio
• AM or FM stations “stream” versions of on-air signal
• New stations are created exclusively for the Internet

• Satellite radio: a subscription-based national service

originating with the launch of a series of satellites to cover the
continental United States
• XM and Sirius merged to become SiriusXM in 2008
• Requires a special radio tuner, though access is available on
mobile devices via an app

• Podcasting: making audio files available on the Internet for

downloading or streaming
• More than one-third of Americans listen to podcasts monthly
The Economics of Radio (1 of 3)
• Radio advertising
• Constitutes 10% of media advertising
• Industry revenue has dropped, but number of stations
remains stable
• Only 20% of budget goes toward programming costs
• National networks provide programming for local
stations in exchange for time slots for national ads
The Economics of Radio (2 of 3)
• Payola: record promoters paying deejays to play
particular records
• Rampant during 1950s
• Management took control of programming, but payola
persisted
• Resurfaced due to streaming radio services

• In 2010, Univision Radio paid $1 million to settle a

payola investigation by the FCC
The Economics of Radio (3 of 3)
• Consolidation of broadcast radio ownership
decreases diversity

• Telecommunications Act of 1996: eliminated most

ownership restrictions on radio
• iHeartMedia owns 856 radio stations
Radio and the Democracy of the Airwaves
• Influence of radio in the formation of American culture cannot
be overestimated; it was the first national electronic mass
medium
• Early debates over radio produced one of the most important
ideas in communication policy: the requirement to operate in
the “public interest, convenience, or necessity”
• Trend of radio moving away from localism and the concept of
“live” radio
• Voice-tracking: deejays digitally record their “breaks” between
songs in advance

• Low-power FM (LPFM): a class of 100-watt stations that give

voice to local groups lacking access to the public airwaves