American Radio 1923-present

Making order out of chaos… By 1927, NBC had two radio networks, RED and BLUE because communications traffic was so heavy. There was still no other competition. BUT…money begets money, and money begets competition…. CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) entered the arena in 1927 and shook things up again.

Television enters the scene With the invention of “talkies”, or motion pictures with sound, AT&T got into the sound business with the major movie studios without advising its partners. GE and Westinghouse (RCA ) felt left behind, so they teamed up Kaufmann and Orpheus to form the RKO movie theater chain, one of the largest and most successful in the country.

With the popularity of “talkies”, more and more demand was placed on music for the movies. Thus RCA bought two small music companies in 1927 and 1928 and formed the RCA record label. Experiments with television appeared in the late 1920’s, using stop action pictures and a radio for sound. (This is the origin of simulcasting, or the practice of simultaneously airing the audio portion on the radio..)

Congress cuts teeth Earlier legislation aimed at regulating radio was not enforced. The Radio Act of 1927 was one of the most comprehensive and significant laws to date. It had enforcement powers.

The Radio Act of 1927 Included: Establishing the Federal Radio Commission ( this was an oversight agency that was the “enforcer” and the forerunner to the FCC, of Federal Communications Commission) Requiring licenses that had to be renewed Including antimonopoly regulations Limiting the number of outlets per market Limiting the power of each station Including a clause for television Did not include censorship power

Due to an increase in financial troubles, CBS sold 40 percent of its interests to Paramount Studios. The seeds were sown for the tie-in of radio and television with the movie industry. David Sarnoff made a prediction in 1929 when he said that within five years, there would be a television set in every household. He was off by about 50 years, but there were a couple of events that got in the way that he could not have foretold.

The American Broadcasting Company When part of NBC’s network was sold in 1945, it was renamed the American Broadcasting Company, or ABC. It soon became clear that the airwaves, which legally belong to the public, had to be regulated. Stations were saturating them and interfering with each other’s broadcasts.

Contemporary Radio Radio fascinated the American public in the 1920’s, 1930’s, and 1940’s. Comedians such as Jack Benny, Bob Hope, and Fred Allen drew huge audiences, and sporting events such as football and baseball became widely accessible. Today more than 500 million radios are in use. In the US alone there are about 5,000 AM stations and almost as many FM stations.

Shock Jocks and Radio Talk Shows In the 1990’s radio took an unusual turn. So-called shock jocks and call-in talk shows began to dominate the air waves, especially on AM radio. Shock jocks— Howard Stern is one of the best known— make careers out of being insulting and outrageous, saying whatever comes to mind.

Journalism vs. Talk Show Journalism is devoted to providing accurate, objective, untainted information that the public can use personally in decision making, particularly political decision making. Talk show hosts are not journalists. They are entertainers. What they say should be taken with a grain of salt.

How does radio work? AM and FM radio are both methods of sending information over radio waves, or more generally, over any type of wave. The information doesn’t necessarily have to be sound, though, as TV broadcasts are transmitted as a combination of FM and AM signals. Theoretically, you could even use AM and FM to transmit information between two cans tied together by a string. It’s just not as effective. Otherwise, everyone would be surfing the Information Super Ball o’ Yarn today, instead of that Internet thing. Radio waves are a form of electromagnetic radiation, just like visible light is. The two attributes of electromagnetic radiation that are important to the transmission of information are its frequency and it’s amplitude. The frequency of electromagnetic radiation controls how quickly the waves vibrate. For visible light, the frequency determines the color of the light. The amplitude is how strong the radiation is. In terms of visible light, amplitude and brightness mean the same thing. Source:

What’s AM radio, anyway?? Two ways of sending information over radio waves would be either to change the amplitude or the frequency of the radio transmission. Not surprisingly, when you change the amplitude of the wave, that technique of information transmission is called amplitude modulation (AM). Even less surprisingly, when you change the frequency to transmit information, you are using frequency modulation (FM). Commercial AM radio stations transmit at set frequencies between 535 kHz and 1,605 kHz. The good thing about transmitting at these frequencies is that they can be reflected and refracted by the layer of the atmosphere called the ionosphere. This means that AM radio can be heard very far away, even over mountains. The problem with AM radio, though, is that interference from things like lightning, machinery, and UFO’s affect the amplitude of the signal. This is why during thunderstorms and alien attacks, AM radio stinks even worse than it usually does. Source:

Frequency modulation transmits sound by adjusting the frequency of the radio wave. The mechanics behind frequency modulation are more difficult, but the main point is that the amplitude of the radio wave stays constant, while the frequency fluctuates around a basic carrier wave. This is like keeping a light at a constant brightness, but changing the color to transmit information. Commercial FM stations transmit between 88 MHz and 108 MHz, frequencies which aren’t reflected by the ionosphere. This means that FM stations need to be placed in high spots so that they can cover more area. However, FM isn’t affected by changes in amplitude, so the things that interfere with AM signals don’t affect FM signals. Unfortunately, controlling annoying passengers who fiddle with your car radio is still beyond the power of modern science. Source: What is FM Radio?

Stay Tuned For the history of television!