1. wired nation KDKA in the early 1920s

2. wired nation Ways to finance radio? The government just creates a service and gives it money (Canada, Mexico) Finance radio by a license tax on receivers (Britain, BBC) Non-profits fund radio Listener subscriber radio Commercials

3. wired nation Science break!

4. wired nation Remember Cartesian geometry? Y = x + 1, etc

5. wired nation... which got progressively nastier...

6. wired nation Can I run away and join the circus now?

7. wired nation... Then came sine waves

8. wired nation All radio energy moves in sine waves Hertz: How many cycles the wave travels in a second. 1,000 times = 1 kilohertz 1,000,000 times = 1 megahertz

9. wired nation Waves can modulate by amplitude Amplitude Modulation: The sound changes because the size of the wave gets bigger and smaller; the length of the wave stays the same

10. wired nation Waves can modulate by frequency Frequency modulation: The size stays the same, but the frequency constantly changes.

11. wired nation Problem: AM waves cause static when they reach the receiver ouch! ooph!

12. wired nation Thank you FM wave! But FM waves don’t modulate by amplitude, so they stay smooth all the way home!

13. wired nation Broadcasting signals get allocated by hertz AM radio - 535 kilohertz to 1.7 megahertz Short wave radio - bands from 5.9 megahertz to 26.1 megahertz Citizens band (CB) radio - 26.96 megahertz to 27.41 megahertz Television stations - 54 to 88 megahertz for channels 2 through 6 FM radio - 88 megahertz to 108 megahertz Television stations - 174 to 220 megahertz for channels 7 through 13

14. wired nation How to convert meters into kilohertz Radio stations used to say “This station broadcasts at 240 meters” That is, the length of the wave was 240 meters (meter x.91 = yard) Now they define the frequency by hertz (How many cycles the wave travels in a second) – To convert to kilohertz (AM radio): Divide your meter measurement into 300,000 Eg., a station broadcasting at 240 meters, broadcasts at 300,000/240 = 1,250 kHz – To convert to megahertz (FM radio): 300/240 = 1.25 mHz

15. wired nation In early 1920s... Most stations broadcast at 360 meters... –833.33 kHz Government/weather stations broadcast at 485 meters... –645 kHz

16. wired nation Don’t confuse hertz with watts! Hertz is the frequency rate at which a station broadcasts Wattage is how much electrical power the transmitter uses (one watt = one joule per second) Please, don’t ask me what a joule is, basically it’s a unit of electrical energy...

17. wired nation... Now, back to our story!

18. wired nation The Hoover radio conferences, 1921-1926 Conferences allow Secretary of Commerce Hoover to establish license requirements, different wattage levels for different stations Stations start naming themselves with four letters 1923: ASCAP negotiates license fees for radio stations using music, most of it live

19. wired nation National Broadcasting Company created, 1926 AT&T agrees to stop suing companies it claims are illegally using its hookup lines AT&T, GE and Westinghouse will equip RCA spinoff (NBC) which produces programming for radio Sets up initial network of 19 radio stations

20. wired nation 1926, Zenith v. United States Zenith challenges Hoover’s authority to allocate licenses up to the Supreme Court Supreme Court says that Congress did not give government authority to assign licenses, power, frequencies The “period of chaos” begins

21. wired nation Speaking of chaos... Dr. John Romulus Brinkley Welcome to the Brinkley hospital

22. wired nation 1927, The Federal Radio Commission Five commissioners supervise the airwaves Could allocate licenses and create different classes of radio stations Radio stations must operate at the “public interest, convenience, or necessity.”

23. wired nation 1928, FRC license allocation NBC affiliate stations get big “clear channel” licenses Educational stations get weaker licenses or are forced to share licenses with each other Commercial stations defined as “general interest” stations, deserving of better licenses Non-commercial stations as “propaganda” stations, deserving of lesser signals

24. wired nation The National Association of Broadcasters (1922) Creating to lobby for the interest of radio station owners Negotiated with groups like ASCAP for artist royalty rates Lobbied Secretary of Commerce and Congress over spectrum allocations

25. wired nation Thanks to Jerry Berg http://www181.pair.com/otsw/AppCards.html Advertising agencies push radio commercials Push “indirect advertising” Call it the “American system” Emphasize sincerity –Radio is like the camera, photograph –It is a uniquely sincere form of communication

26. wired nation Betty Crocker evolution, 1936-1986 http://chnm.gmu.edu/features/sidelights/crocker.html

27. wired nation Ladies Home Journal ad, 1920

28. wired nation Country music on the radio Jimmy Rodgers, the Carter Family, and Patsy Montana (“America’s number 1 singing cowgirl”)

29. wired nation The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) British Broadcasting company owned by radio manufacturers, 1922 Licensed by Post Office Financed by a tax on radio receivers Nationalized in 1927 Sir John Reith

30. wired nation Amos ‘n Andy, 1929 First national hit comedy radio show 1931, black newspaper Pittsburgh Courier gets 700,000 signers to demand show be cancelled Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll

31. wired nation Comedy show about a Jewish immigrant family’s acculturation to the United States Nationally syndicated on NBC in 1929

32. wired nation National Committee for Education by Radio (NCER), 1930 Journalists and educators who advocate for non- commercial, educational radio Backed by the Payne fund Joy Elmer Morgan, educational radio advocate

33. wired nation Three arguments against commercial broadasting Commercial radio will always suppress criticism of big business Radio programming should be broadcast for its own sake, not for the sake of selling commercials Corporate radio fundamentally undemocratic

34. wired nation Problems with media reformers of 1930s Scattered into a wide variety of non- profit groups and fiefdoms Lots of generals, not enough soldiers Elitist, highbrow, and condescending of most radio listeners, who enjoyed the popular programming provided by NBC

35. wired nation Canadian broadcasting system Begun in 1932 with BBC- style receiver license system Established as Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1936 Private commercial broadcasters limited to low power local stations Allowed partial advertising to supplement station income Graham Spry: “It’s the state or the United States.”

36. wired nation National Advisory Council on Radio in Education (NACRE, 1930) Non-profit created to work with NBC to produce educational radio for the networks Argued that commercialism and educational radio could cooperate with one another Designed to co-opt the 1930s media reform movement Robert Hutchins (left) of NACRE

37. wired nation The Communications Act of 1934 Creates permanent regulatory entity: the Federal Communications Commission Wagner/Hatfield amendment would have allotted 25 percent of broadcast channels to "educational, religious, agricultural, labor, cooperative, and similar non- profit-making associations." Defeated by radio industry lobby