When people tuned in to their sports, weather, news, and entertainment sets during the first half of the 20th century, they heard what they were looking for, but ironically they “watched” very little. This was radio, a stepping stone into what would eventually become television, and it had a story of its own.
Those who participated in its founding, however, 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 then succeeded in sending a wireless signal across the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. Radio, in essence, was born that day.
Hardly an exact science, it took on a more structured form five years later when Lee De Forest organized 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 located in his garage, for example, Doc Herald began broadcasting three years later and helped others build glass sets with the knowledge he had accumulated thus far. Numerous fans quickly followed him.
The first organization to exploit this innovation was the American Marconi Company. Headed by David Sarnoff, who first served as his messenger and eventually worked his way up to his executive, he was able to broadcast within a 50-mile radius, bringing entertainment to homes within this area in 1916 and replacing what which had previously been little more than amateur-led “talks” given by “handymen” with crude games.
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. Combining 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 make transmitting and receiving equipment, while AT&T concentrated on telephone communications. The most successful of the original three, however, the latter demonstrated the impact communication could have when a Long Island realtor offered him $ 100, then a hefty sum, to disseminate information about the homes they had available for sale during ten minutes of airtime, and the response from listeners was overwhelming. Radio advertising was born.
Putting it on the path to unprecedented growth, AT&T became independent and formed its own station, WEAF, connecting it with the Boston radio station WNAC in 1923. It was just the beginning of its network of affiliations and reach.
Still understanding the other half of RCA, Westinghouse and General Electric, mindful of their partner’s growth, they followed suit and formed their own station, WJZ. However, since they received no advertising support for the company, it barely limped forward for two years until AT&T sold them its own WEAF station in 1926, allowing the combined Westinghouse and General Electric company to become the National Broadcasting Company. , or NBC, which owned half of the shares, while the original RCA owned the other half.
Reflecting their broadcasting areas in the US, a graph with red or blue lines indicated the cities to which WEAF and WJZ were broadcasting, respectively.
With the success came the intervention of the monopoly and the federal government. In considering the anti-competitive deal, the government itself forced NBC to sell its blue broadcast network, divesting its WJZ station, 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 fans had grown into a multi-corporation business with incredible scope. But, due to the extensive use of radio waves, the demand soon exceeded its capacity and the 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, as 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 one step further by determining which radio stations would have air access and which would not.
The act, needless to say, sparked controversy and was deemed unconstitutional. Eugene F. McDonald, for example, owner of the WJAZ station in Chicago, claimed that the president had exceeded his authority in making such determinations and this prompted 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 they wanted to hear.
Although most of the early hurdles ameliorated, the final Communications Act of 1934 was finally established.
The “control” during these nascent times, however, was often more subtle. Sponsors and ad 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 ad time and happened to run low-quality shows, they felt that the number of people they reached decreased 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 flourished. Three major stations provided news, information and entertainment to millions of people across the country who only needed to turn a dial to access them.
The basis of many television mysteries, comedies, adventures, youth and even soap operas that became popular later, 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 of the early actors and actresses to get their initial exposure.
Radio became the mainstay of American entertainment for about two decades, until another emerging technology, television, appeared in the 1950s, offering both 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.
