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CHAPTER 4 ○ RADIO��107

SOUNDS AND IMAGES

109 Early Technology and the Development of Radio

116 The Evolution of Radio

123 Radio Reinvents Itself

128 The Sounds of Commercial Radio

135 The Economics of Broadcast Radio

139 Radio and the Democracy of the Airwaves

Popular Radio and the Origins of Broadcasting In the early 2000s, Clear Channel Communica- tions was at its high point. Just a few years ear- lier, in 1995, it owned only 39 radio stations, near the maximum number then allowed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). But the Telecommunications Act of 1996 over- turned most radio ownership rules, and Clear Channel went on a station- buying spree. By 2000, it owned more than 1,000 stations, and within a few more years it surpassed 1,200— over three times the number of its nearest competitor. It was also the largest billboard company in the world, the nation’s largest live music concert promoter, operator of an athlete management firm, owner of 56 television sta- tions, and an investor in 240 radio stations in other countries.

WITH HUNDREDS of radio channels across the country, Clear Channel’s broad reach means that listeners from New York to Florida to Ohio are exposed to the same cookie-cutter artists and radio programming.

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The corporate world loved the ever- growing communication’s behemoth, and Fortune magazine lauded Clear Channel’s business model of domination by naming it to its list of “America’s Most Admired Companies” for several consec- utive years. Yet regular radio -listening Americans in places like Atlanta, Chi- cago, Cincinnati, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Washington, D.C., weren’t so admiring of Clear Chan- nel, which owned the majority of their cities’ major radio stations.

Clear Channel’s rise ushered in a new era of homogenized corporate radio, characterized by centralized control and a greater reliance on syndicated radio programming. Citizens and com- munity groups complained about the decline of minority ownership; the lack of musical diversity on the airwaves; the near- disappearance of local radio news; and the replacement of live, local radio deejays with imported or prerecorded announcers.1 Concerns about Clear Channel inspired a formal grassroots media reform movement in 2002. Citizen pressure forced the FCC to begin public hearings on localism in broadcasting, and more than three million Americans contacted the FCC to oppose further relaxation of media ownership rules.

Ultimately, in its move to make itself into an extraordinary vehicle for advertis- ers, Clear Channel lost sight of its most precious commodity—listeners—and its duty to operate in the public interest. While Clear Channel was amassing an unprecedented number of radio sta- tions as an advertising vehicle, listeners found homogenized local radio increas- ingly less relevant to their lives and began migrating to satellite and Internet radio, or to their own iPods.

In 2005, just ten years after its mete- oric rise began, Clear Channel failed to make Fortune’s “Most Admired” list and began to generate revenue by disas- sembling itself—selling its concert busi- ness and its television station group, and offering some of its radio stations for sale. In 2008, it was bought for $24 billion by private equity investors Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Part- ners. Clear Channel, now struggling financially with debt from years of expansion, is still the largest radio station chain in the country, with almost nine hundred stations.

Still, there remains little diversity in radio station ownership these days. A study indicated that women, who con- stitute 51 percent of the U.S. popula- tion, own just 6 percent of full-power commercial broadcast radio stations. Racial minorities, who make up 33 percent of the country’s population, own only 7.7 percent of the stations.2 Diversity in media ownership is crucial to democracy, argues Loris Taylor, ex- ecutive director of Native Public Media, an advocacy group for the country’s thirty -three American Indian–owned public stations. “If you don’t have access and ownership and control of a media system, you really don’t exist,” she says. “You don’t matter in terms of being citi- zens in a democracy who are entitled to the ability to tell, and have a conversa- tion about, your own stories.”3

“Clear Channel’s rise ushered in a new era of homogenized corporate radio.”

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EVEN WITH THE ARRIVAL OF TV IN THE 1950s and the “corporatization” of broad- casting in the 1990s, the historical and contemporary roles played by radio have been immense. From the early days of network radio, which gave us “a national identity” and “a chance to share in a common experience,”4 to the more customized, demographically segmented medium today, radio’s influence continues to reverberate throughout our society. Though television displaced radio as our most common media experience, radio specialized and adapted. The daily music and persistent talk that resonate from radios all over the world continue to play a key role in contemporary culture.

In this chapter, we examine the scientific, cultural, political, and economic factors sur- rounding radio’s development and perseverance. We will:

• Explore the origins of broadcasting, from the early theories about radio waves to the criti- cal formation of RCA as a national radio monopoly.

• Probe the evolution of commercial radio, including the rise of NBC as the first network, the development of CBS, and the establishment of the first federal radio legislation.

• Review the fascinating ways in which radio reinvented itself in the 1950s. • Examine television’s impact on radio programming, the invention of FM radio, radio’s

convergence with sound recording, and the influence of various formats. • Investigate newer developments like satellite and HD radio, their impact on the radio

industry, and the convergence of radio with the Internet. • Survey the economic health, increasing conglomeration, and cultural impact of commer-

cial and noncommercial radio today, including the emergence of noncommercial low- power FM service.

As you read through this chapter, think about your own relationship with radio. What are your earliest memories of listening to radio? Do you remember a favorite song or station? How old were you when you started listening? Why did you listen? What types of radio stations are in your area today? If you could own and manage a commercial radio station, what format would you choose, and why? For more questions to help you think through the role of radio in our lives, see “Questioning the Media” in the Chapter Review.

Radio did not emerge as a full-blown mass medium until the 1920s, though the technology that made radio possible had been evolving for years. The telegraph—the precursor of radio tech- nology—was invented in the 1840s. American inventor Samuel Morse developed the first practi- cal system, sending electrical impulses from a transmitter through a cable to a reception point. Using what became known as Morse code—a series of dots and dashes that stood for letters in the alphabet—telegraph operators transmitted news and messages simply by interrupting the electrical current along a wire cable. By 1844, Morse had set up the first telegraph line between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. By 1861, telegraph lines ran coast to coast. By 1866, the first transatlantic cable, capable of transmitting about six words a minute, ran between Newfound- land and Ireland along the ocean floor.

Although it was a revolutionary technology, the telegraph had its limitations. For instance, while it dispatched complicated language codes, it was unable to transmit the human voice. Moreover, ships at sea still had no contact with the rest of the world. As a result, navies could

Early Technology and the Development of Radio

“The telegraph and the telephone were instruments for private communication between two individuals. The radio was democratic; it directed its message to the masses and allowed one person to communicate with many. The new medium of radio was to the printing press what the telephone had been to the letter: it allowed imme- diacy. It enabled listeners to exper- ience an event as it happened.”

TOM LEWIS, EMPIRE OF THE AIR, 1991

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not find out that wars had ceased on land and often continued fighting for months. Commercial shipping interests also lacked an efficient way to coordinate and relay information from land and between ships. What was needed was a telegraph without the wires.

Maxwell and Hertz Discover Radio Waves The key development in wireless transmissions came from James Maxwell, a Scottish physicist who in the mid-1860s theorized the existence of elec- tromagnetic waves: invisible electronic impulses similar to visible light. Maxwell’s equations showed that electricity, magnetism, light, and heat are part of the same electromagnetic spectrum and that they radiate in space at the speed of light, about 186,000 miles per second (see Figure 4.1). Maxwell further theorized that a portion of these phenomena, later known as radio waves, could be harnessed so that signals could be sent from a transmission point to a reception point.

It was German physicist Heinrich Hertz, however, who in the 1880s proved Maxwell’s theo- ries. Hertz created a crude device that permitted an electrical spark to leap across a small gap between two steel balls. As the electricity jumped the gap, it emitted waves; this was the first recorded transmission and reception of an electromagnetic wave. Hertz’s experiments signifi- cantly advanced the development of wireless communication.

Marconi and the Inventors of Wireless Telegraphy In 1894, Guglielmo Marconi, a twenty-year-old, self-educated Italian engineer, read Hertz’s work and understood that developing a way to send high-speed messages over great distances

A TELEGRAPH OPERATOR reads the perforated tape. Sending messages using Morse code across telegraph wires was the precursor to radio, which did not fully become a mass medium until the 1920s.

Popular Radio and the Origins of Broadcasting

Amateur Radio Shutdown The navy closes down all amateur radio operations in 1917 to ensure mili- tary security as the United States enters World War I (p. 115).

Practical Use for Wireless Technology Wireless operators save 705 lives during the Titanic tragedy in 1912, boosting interest in amateur ra- dio across the United States (p. 114).

Commercial Radio The first advertise- ments beginning in 1922 cause an uproar as people question the right to pollute the public airwaves with commercial messages (p. 116).

1830 1850 1890 19101870

Lee De Forest The American inventor writes the first dis- sertation on wireless technology in 1899 and goes on to invent wireless telephony and a means for amplifying radio sound (p. 113).

Guglielmo Marconi The Italian inventor begins experiments on wireless telegra- phy in 1894. He sees his invention as a means for point-to- point communication (pp. 110–113).

Samuel Morse The first telegraph line is set up between Washing- ton, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland, in 1844. For the first time in history, communication exceeds the speed of land trans- portation (p. 109).

Nikola Tesla The Serbian-Croatian inventor creates a wire- less device in America in 1892. His transmit- ter can make a tube thirty feet away light up (p. 112).

Wireless Ship Act In 1910, Congress passes this act re- quiring that all major ships be equipped with wireless radio (p. 114).

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would transform communication, the military, and commercial shipping. Although revolu- tionary, the telephone and the telegraph were limited by their wires, so Marconi set about trying to make wireless technology practical. First, he attached Hertz’s spark-gap transmitter to a Morse telegraph key, which could send out dot-dash signals. The electrical impulses traveled into a Morse inker, the machine that telegraph operators used to record the dots and dashes onto narrow strips of paper. Second, Marconi discovered that grounding—connecting the transmitter and receiver to the earth—greatly increased the distance over which he could send signals.

In 1896, Marconi traveled to England, where he received a patent on wireless telegra- phy, a form of voiceless point-to-point communication. In London, in 1897, he formed the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, later known as British Marconi, and began installing

FIGURE 4.1 THE ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM Source: NASA, http://imagine.gsfc .nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/ emspectrum.html.

Long Wavelength Low Frequency

Low Energy

Aircraft and Shipping

Bands AM Radio

Shortwave Radio

TV and FM Radio

Microwaves Radar

Infrared Light

Visible Ultraviolet Light

X-rays Gamma-rays

Short Wavelength High Frequency High Energy

Radio Act of 1927 Radio stations are required to operate in the “public inter- est, convenience, or necessity“ (p. 120).

William Paley CBS is found- ed in 1928 and becomes a competitor to NBC (p. 119).

Communications Act of 1934 After intense lobbying by the radio industry, Congress passes this act, which allows commercial interests to control the airwaves (p. 120).

David Sarnoff The first lasting network of radio stations, NBC, is cre- ated in 1926. Connected by AT&T long lines, the network broadcasts pro- grams nationally and plays a prominent role in unifying the country (p. 117).

Golden Age of Radio By 1930, living rooms are filled with music, drama, comedy, variety and quiz shows, and news (p. 120).

Radio Suffers In the wake of TV’s popularity in the 1950s, ra- dio suffers but is resurrected via rock and roll and transistor radios (pp. 123–125).

Podcasting Podcasting is developed in 2004, allow- ing users to listen to audio content and their favorite radio programs on-the-go (p. 134).

FM A new radio format begins to gain national popularity in the 1960s (pp. 124–125).

1930

Webcaster Settlement Act of 2009 This law saves Internet radio, allow- ing Webcasters to negotiate royalties directly with the mu- sic industry rather than paying for each song ( p. 135) .

1950 1970 1990 2010 2020

Talk Radio Talk radio be- comes the most popular format of the 1990s, especially on AM stations (p. 127).

Telecommunications Act of 1996 This law effects a rapid, unprecedented consolidation in radio ownership across the United States (p. 137).

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wireless technology on British naval and private commercial ships. In 1899, he opened a branch in the United States, establishing a company nicknamed American Marconi. That same year, he sent the first wireless Morse code signal across the English Channel to France, and in 1901 he relayed the first wireless signal across the Atlantic Ocean. Although Marconi was a successful innovator and entrepreneur, he saw wireless telegraphy only as point-to-point communication, much like the telegraph and the telephone, not as a one-to-many mass medium. He also confined his applications to Morse code messages for military and commercial ships, leaving others to explore the wireless transmission of voice and music.

History often cites Marconi as the “father of radio,” but another inventor unknown to him was making parallel discoveries about wireless telegraphy in Russia. Alexander Popov, a professor of physics in St. Petersburg, was experimenting with sending wireless mes- sages over distances just as Marconi was undertaking similar work in Bologna, Italy. Popov announced to the Russian Physicist Society of St. Petersburg on May 7, 1895, that he had transmitted and received signals over a distance of six hundred yards.5 Yet Popov was an aca- demic, not an entrepreneur, and after Marconi accomplished a similar feat that same sum- mer, Marconi was the first to apply for and receive a patent. However, May 7 is celebrated as “Radio Day” in Russia.

It is important to note that the work of Popov and Marconi was preceded by that of Nikola Tesla, a Serbian-Croatian inventor who immigrated to New York in 1884. Tesla, who also conceived the high-capacity alternating current systems that made worldwide electrification possible, invented a wireless system in 1892. A year later, Tesla successfully demonstrated his device in St. Louis, with his transmitter lighting up a receiver tube thirty feet away.6 However,

NIKOLA TESLA A double-exposed photo- graph combines the image of inventor Nikola Tesla reading a book in his Colorado Springs, Colorado, laboratory in 1899 with the image of his Tesla coil discharging several million volts.

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Tesla’s work was overshadowed by Marconi’s; Marconi used much of Tesla’s work in his own developments, and for years Tesla was not associated with the invention of radio. Tesla never received great financial benefits from his breakthroughs, but in 1943 (a few months after he died penniless in New York) the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Marconi’s wireless patent and deemed Tesla the inventor of radio.7

Wireless Telephony: De Forest and Fessenden In 1899, inventor Lee De Forest (who, in defiance of other inventors, liked to call himself the “father of radio”) wrote the first Ph.D. dissertation on wireless technology, building on others’ innovations. In 1901, De Forest challenged Marconi, who was covering New York’s International Yacht Races for the Associated Press, by signing up to report the races for a rival news service. The competing transmitters jammed each other’s signals so badly, however, that officials ended up relaying information on the races in the traditional way—with flags and hand signals. The event exemplified a problem that would persist throughout radio’s early development: noise and interference from competition for the finite supply of radio frequencies.

In 1902, De Forest set up the Wireless Telephone Company to compete head-on with American Marconi, by then the leader in wireless communication. A major difference between Marconi and De Forest was the latter’s interest in wireless voice and music transmissions, later known as wireless telephony and, eventually, radio. Although sometimes an unscrupulous competitor (inventor Reginald Fessenden won a lawsuit against De Forest for using one of his patents without permission), De Forest went on to patent more than three hundred inventions.

De Forest’s biggest breakthrough was the development of the Audion, or triode, vacuum tube, which detected radio signals and then amplified them. De Forest’s improvements greatly increased listeners’ ability to hear dots and dashes and, later, speech and music on a receiver set. His modifications were essential to the development of voice transmission, long-distance radio, and television. In fact, the Audion vacuum tube, which powered radios until the arrival of transistors and solid-state circuits in the 1950s, is considered by many historians to be the beginning of modern electronics. But again, bitter competition taints De Forest’s legacy; although De Forest won a twenty-year court battle for the rights to the Audion patent, most en- gineers at the time agreed that Edwin Armstrong (who later developed FM radio) was the true inventor and disagreed with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1934 decision on the case that favored De Forest.8

The credit for the first voice broadcast belongs to Canadian engineer Reginald Fessen- den, formerly a chief chemist for Thomas Edison. Fessenden went to work for the U.S. Navy and eventually for General Electric (GE), where he played a central role in improving wire- less signals. Both the navy and GE were interested in the potential for voice transmissions. On Christmas Eve in 1906, after GE built Fessenden a powerful transmitter, he gave his first public demonstration, sending a voice through the airwaves from his station at Brant Rock, Massachu- setts. A radio historian describes what happened:

That night, ship operators and amateurs around Brant Rock heard the results: “someone speaking! . . . a woman’s voice rose in song. . . . Next someone was heard reading a poem.” Fessenden himself played “O Holy Night” on his violin. Though the fidelity was not all that it might be, listeners were captivated by the voices and notes they heard. No more would sounds be restricted to mere dots and dashes of the Morse code.9

Ship operators were astonished to hear voices rather than the familiar Morse code. (Some operators actually thought they were having a supernatural encounter.) This event showed that

“I discovered an Invisible Empire of the Air, intangible, yet solid as granite.”

LEE DE FOREST, INVENTOR

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the wireless medium was moving from a point-to-point communication tool (wireless opera- tor to wireless operator) toward a one-to-many communication tool. Broadcasting, once an agricultural term that referred to the process of casting seeds over a large area, would come to mean the transmission of radio waves (and, later, TV signals) to a broad public audience. Prior to radio broadcasting, wireless was considered a form of narrowcasting, or person-to-person communication, like the telegraph and telephone.

In 1908, De Forest—declaring he was the record holder for long-distance wireless transmissions—said he transmitted gramophone music recordings from an experimental device atop the Eiffel Tower in Paris to locations more than four hundred miles away. In 1910, De Forest transmitted a performance of Tosca by the Metropolitan Opera to friends in the New York area with wireless receivers. At this point in time, radio passed from the novelty stage to the entre- preneurial stage, where various practical uses would be tested before radio would launch as a mass medium.

Regulating a New Medium The two most important international issues affecting radio in the 1900s were ship radio requirements and signal interference. Congress passed the Wireless Ship Act in 1910, which required that all major U.S. seagoing ships carrying more than fifty passen- gers and traveling more than two hundred miles off the coast be equipped with wireless equipment with a one-hundred-mile range. The importance of this act was underscored by the Titanic disaster two years later. A brand-new British luxury steamer, the Titanic sank in 1912. Although more than fifteen hundred people died in the tragedy, wireless reports played a critical role in pinpointing the Titanic’s location, enabling rescue ships to save over seven hundred lives.

Radio Waves as a Natural Resource In the wake of the Titanic tragedy, Congress passed the Radio Act of 1912, which addressed the problem of amateur radio operators increasingly cramming the airwaves. Because radio waves crossed state and national borders, legislators determined that broadcasting consti- tuted a “natural resource”—a kind of interstate commerce. This meant that radio waves could not be owned; they were the collective property of all Americans, just like national parks. Therefore, transmitting on radio waves would require licensing in the same way that driving a car requires a license.

A short policy guide, the first Radio Act required all wireless stations to obtain radio licenses from the Commerce Department. This act, which governed radio until 1927, also formally adopted the SOS Morse-code distress signal that other countries had been using for several years. Further, the “natural resource” mandate led to the idea that radio, and eventually television, should provide a benefit to society—in the form of education and public service. The eventual establishment of public radio stations was one consequence of this idea, and the Fair- ness Doctrine was another.

The Impact of World War I By 1915, more than twenty American companies sold wireless point-to-point communication systems, primarily for use in ship-to-shore communication. Having established a reputation for efficiency and honesty, American Marconi (a subsidiary of British Marconi) was the biggest and

NEWS OF THE TITANIC Despite the headline in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, actually 1,523 people died and only 705 were rescued when the Titanic hit an iceberg on April 14, 1912 (the ship technically sank at 2:20 A.M. on April 15). The crew of the Titanic used the Marconi wireless equipment on board to send distress signals to other ships. Of the eight ships nearby, the Carpathia was the first to respond with lifeboats.

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best of these companies. But in 1914, with World War I beginning in Europe and with America warily watching the conflict, the U.S. Navy questioned the wisdom of allowing a foreign- controlled company to wield so much power. American corporations, especially GE and AT&T, capitalized on the navy’s xenophobia and succeeded in undercutting Marconi’s influence.

As wireless telegraphy played an increasingly large role in military operations, the navy sought tight controls on information. When the United States entered the war in 1917, the navy closed down all amateur radio operations and took control of key radio transmitters to ensure military security. As the war was nearing its end in 1919, British Marconi placed an order with GE for twenty-four potent new alternators, which were strong enough to power a transoceanic system of radio stations that could connect the world. But the U.S. Navy—influenced by Franklin Roosevelt, at that time the navy’s assistant secretary—grew concerned and moved to ensure that such powerful new radio technology would not fall under foreign control.

Roosevelt was guided in turn by President Woodrow Wilson’s goal of developing the United States as an international power, a position greatly enhanced by American military successes during the war. Wilson and the navy saw an opportunity to slow Britain’s influence over com- munication and to promote a U.S. plan for the control of the emerging wireless operations. Thus corporate heads and government leaders conspired to make sure radio communication would serve American interests.

The Formation of RCA Some members of Congress and the corporate community opposed federal legislation that would grant the government or the navy a radio monopoly. Consequently, GE developed a com- promise plan that would create a private sector monopoly—that is, a private company that would have the government’s approval to dominate the radio industry. First, GE broke off negotiations to sell key radio technologies to European-owned companies like British Marconi, thereby limit- ing those companies’ global reach. Second, GE took the lead in founding a new company, Radio Corporation of America (RCA), which soon acquired American Marconi and radio patents of other U.S. companies. Upon its founding in 1919, RCA had pooled the necessary technology and patents to monopolize the wireless industry and expand American communication technology throughout the world.10

Under RCA’s patents pool arrangement, wireless patents from the navy, AT&T, GE, the former American Marconi, and other companies were combined to ensure U.S. control over the manufacture of radio transmitters and receivers. Initially, AT&T, then the government- sanctioned monopoly provider of telephone services, manufactured most transmitters, while GE (and later Westinghouse) made radio receivers. RCA administered the pool, collecting patent royalties and distributing them to pool members. To protect these profits, the government did not permit RCA to manufacture equipment or to operate radio stations under its own name for several years. Instead, RCA’s initial function was to ensure that radio parts were standardized by manufacturers and to control frequency interference by amateur radio operators, which increasingly became a problem after the war.

A government restriction at the time mandated that no more than 20 percent of RCA—and eventually any U.S. broadcasting facility—could be owned by foreigners. This restriction, later raised to 25 percent, became law in 1927 and applied to all U.S. broadcasting stocks and facili- ties. It is because of this rule that in 1985 Rupert Murdoch, the head of Australia’s giant News Corp., became a U.S. citizen so he could buy a number of TV stations and form the Fox televi- sion network.

RCA’s most significant impact was that it gave the United States almost total control over the emerging mass medium of broadcasting. At the time, the United States was the only country that placed broadcasting under the care of commercial, rather than military or government, interests. By pooling more than two thousand patents and sharing research developments, RCA

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ensured the global dominance of the United States in mass communication, a position it main- tained in electronic hardware into the 1960s and maintains in program content today.

When Westinghouse engineer Frank Conrad set up a crude radio studio above his Pittsburgh garage in 1916, placing a microphone in front of a phonograph to broadcast music and news to his friends (whom Conrad supplied with receivers) two evenings a week on experimental station 8XK, he unofficially became one of the medium’s first disc jockeys. In 1920, a Westing- house executive, intrigued by Conrad’s curious hobby, realized the potential of radio as a mass medium. Westinghouse then established station KDKA, which is generally regarded as the first commercial broadcast station. KDKA is most noted for airing national returns from the Cox– Harding presidential election on November 2, 1920, an event most historians consider the first professional broadcast.

Other amateur broadcasters could also lay claim to being first. One of the earliest stations, operated by Charles “Doc” Herrold in San Jose, California, began in 1909 and later became KCBS. Additional experimental stations—in places like New York; Detroit; Medford, Massachu- setts; and Pierre, South Dakota—broadcast voice and music prior to the establishment of KDKA. But KDKA’s success, with the financial backing of Westinghouse, signaled the start of broadcast radio.

In 1921, the U.S. Commerce Department officially licensed five radio stations for operation; by early 1923, more than six hundred commercial and noncommercial stations were operating. Some stations were owned by AT&T, GE, and Westinghouse, but many were run by amateurs or were independently owned by universities or businesses. By the end of 1923, as many as 550,000 radio receivers, most manufactured by GE and Westinghouse, had been sold for about $55 each (about $701 in today’s dollars). Just as the “guts” of the phonograph had been put inside a piece of furniture to create a consumer product, the vacuum tubes, electrical posts, and bulky batteries that made up the radio receiver were placed inside stylish furniture and marketed to households. By 1925, 5.5 million radio sets were in use across America, and radio was officially a mass medium.

The RCA Partnership Unravels In 1922, in a major power grab, AT&T, which already had a government-sanctioned monopoly in the telephone business, decided to break its RCA agreements in an attempt to monopolize radio as well. Identifying the new medium as the “wireless telephone,” AT&T argued that broadcast- ing was merely an extension of its control over the telephone. Ultimately, the corporate giant complained that RCA had gained too much monopoly power. In violation of its early agreements with RCA, AT&T began making and selling its own radio receivers.

In the same year, AT&T started WEAF (now WNBC) in New York, the first radio station to regularly sell commercial time to advertisers. AT&T claimed that under the RCA agreements it had the exclusive right to sell ads, which AT&T called toll broadcasting. Most people in radio at the time recoiled at the idea of using the medium for crass advertising, viewing it instead as a public information service. In fact, stations that had earlier tried to sell ads received “cease and desist” letters from the Department of Commerce. But by August 1922, AT&T had nonethe- less sold its first ad to a New York real estate developer for $50. The idea of promoting the new

The Evolution of Radio

“I believe the quickest way to kill broadcasting would be to use it for direct advertising.”

HERBERT HOOVER, SECRETARY OF COMMERCE, 1924

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medium as a public service, along the lines of today’s non- commercial National Public Radio (NPR), ended when execu- tives realized that radio ads offered another opportunity for profits. Advertising would ensure profits long after radio-set sales had saturated the consumer market.

The initial strategy behind AT&T’s toll broadcasting idea was an effort to conquer radio. By its agreements with RCA, AT&T retained the rights to interconnect the signals between two or more radio stations via telephone wires. In 1923, when AT&T aired a program simultaneously on its flagship WEAF station and on WNAC in Boston, the phone company created the first network: a cost-saving operation that links (at that time, through special phone lines; today, through satellite relays) a group of broadcast stations that share pro- gramming produced at a central location. By the end of 1924, AT&T had interconnected twenty-two stations to air a talk by President Calvin Coolidge. Some of these stations were owned by AT&T, but most simply consented to become AT&T “affiliates,” agreeing to air the phone company’s programs. These network stations informally became known as the telephone group and later as the Broadcasting Corporation of America (BCA).

In response, GE, Westinghouse, and RCA interconnected a smaller set of competing sta- tions, known as the radio group. Initially, their network linked WGY in Schenectady, New York (then GE’s national headquarters), and WJZ in Manhattan. The radio group had to use inferior Western Union telegraph lines when AT&T denied them access to telephone wires. By this time, AT&T had sold its stock in RCA and refused to lease its lines to competing radio networks. The telephone monopoly was now enmeshed in a battle to defeat RCA for control of radio.

This clash, among other problems, eventually led to a government investigation and an arbitration settlement in 1925. In the agreement, the Justice Department, irritated by AT&T’s power grab, redefined patent agreements. AT&T received a monopoly on providing the wires, known as long lines, to interconnect stations nationwide. In exchange, AT&T sold its BCA net- work to RCA for $1 million and agreed not to reenter broadcasting for eight years (a banishment that actually extended into the 1990s).

Sarnoff and NBC: Building the “Blue” and “Red” Networks After Lee De Forest, David Sarnoff was among the first to envision wireless telegraphy as a modern mass medium. From the time he served as Marconi’s personal messenger (at age fifteen), Sarnoff rose rapidly at American Marconi. He became a wireless operator, helping to relay information about the Titanic survivors in 1912. Promoted to a series of management positions, Sarnoff was closely involved in RCA’s creation in 1919, when most radio executives saw wireless merely as point- to-point communication. But with Sarnoff as RCA’s first commercial manager, radio’s potential as a mass medium was quickly realized. In 1921, at age thirty, Sarnoff became RCA’s general manager.

After RCA bought AT&T’s telephone group network (BCA), Sarnoff created a new subsidiary in September 1926 called the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). Its ownership was shared by RCA (50 percent), General Electric (30 percent), and Westinghouse (20 percent). This loose network of stations would be hooked together by AT&T long lines. Shortly thereafter, the origi- nal telephone group became known as the NBC-Red network, and the radio group (the network previously established by RCA, GE, and Westinghouse) became the NBC-Blue network.

WESTINGHOUSE ENGINEER FRANK CONRAD Broadcasting from his garage, Conrad turned his hobby into Pittsburgh’s KDKA, one of the first radio stations. Although this early station is widely celebrated in history books as the first broadcasting outlet, one can’t underestimate the influence Westinghouse had in promoting this “historical first.” Westinghouse clearly saw the celebration of Conrad’s garage studio as a way to market the company and its radio equipment. The resulting legacy of Conrad’s garage studio has thus overshadowed other individuals who also experimented with radio broadcasting.

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Although NBC owned a number of stations by the late 1920s, many independent stations also began affiliating with the NBC networks to receive programming. An affiliate station, though independently owned, signs a contract to be part of a network and receives money to carry the network’s programs. In exchange, the network reserves time slots, which it sells to national ad- vertisers. Networks centralized costs and programming by bringing the best musical, dramatic, and comedic talent to one place, where programs could be produced and then distributed all over the country. By 1933, NBC-Red had twenty-eight affiliates and NBC-Blue had twenty-four.

Network radio may actually have helped modernize America by de-emphasizing the local and the regional in favor of national programs broadcast to nearly everyone. For example, when Charles Lindbergh returned from the first solo transatlantic flight in 1927, an estimated twenty-five to thirty million people listened to his welcome-home party on the six million radio sets then in use. At the time, it was the largest shared audience experience in the history of any mass medium.

David Sarnoff’s leadership at RCA was capped by two other negotiations that solidified his stat- ure as the driving force behind radio’s development as a modern medium. In 1929, Sarnoff cut a deal with General Motors for the manufacture of car radios, which had been invented a year earlier by William Lear (later the designer of the Learjet), who sold the radios under the brand name Motorola. Sarnoff also merged RCA with the Victor Talking Machine Company. Afterward, until the mid-1960s, the company was known as RCA Victor, adopting as its corporate symbol the famous terrier sitting alertly next to a Victrola radio-phonograph. The merger gave RCA control over Victor’s records and recording equipment, making the radio company a major player in the sound recording industry. In 1930, David Sarnoff became president of RCA, and he ran it for the next forty years.

Government Scrutiny Ends RCA-NBC Monopoly As early as 1923, the Federal Trade Commission had charged RCA with violations of antitrust laws but allowed the monopoly to continue. By the late 1920s, the government, concerned

DAVID SARNOFF As a young man, Sarnoff taught himself Morse code and learned as much as possible in Marconi’s experimental shop in New York. He was then given a job as wireless operator for the station on Nantucket Island. He went on to create NBC and network radio. Sarnoff’s calculated ambition in the radio industry can easily be compared to Bill Gates’s drive to control the computer software and Internet industries.

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about NBC’s growing control over radio content, intensified its scrutiny. Then, in 1930, when RCA bought GE and Westinghouse’s interests in the two NBC networks, federal marshals charged RCA/NBC with a number of violations, including exercising too much control over manufacturing and programming. Although the government had originally sanctioned a closely supervised monopoly for wireless communication, RCA products, its networks, and the growth of the new mass medium dramatically changed the radio industry by the late 1920s. After the collapse of the stock market in 1929, the public became increasingly distrustful of big business. In 1932, the government revoked RCA’s monopoly status.

RCA acted quickly. To eliminate its monopolizing partnerships, Sarnoff’s company bought out GE’s and Westinghouse’s remaining shares in RCA’s manufacturing business. Now RCA would compete directly against GE, Westinghouse, and other radio manufacturers, encouraging more competition in the radio manufacturing industry. Ironically, in the mid-1980s, GE bought RCA, a shell of its former self and no longer competitive with foreign electronics firms.11 GE was chiefly interested in RCA’s brand-name status and its still-lucrative subsidiary, NBC.

CBS and Paley: Challenging NBC Even with RCA’s head start and its favored status, the two NBC networks faced competitors in the late 1920s. The competitors, however, all found it tough going. One group, United Indepen- dent Broadcasters (UIB), even lined up twelve prospective affiliates and offered them $500 a week for access to ten hours of station time in exchange for quality programs. UIB was cash- poor, however, and AT&T would not rent the new company its lines to link the affiliates.

Enter the Columbia Phonograph Company, which was looking for a way to preempt RCA’s merger with the Victor Company, then the record company’s major competitor. With backing from Columbia, UIB launched the new Columbia Phonograph Broadcasting System, a wobbly sixteen-affiliate network in 1927, nicknamed CPBS. But after losing $100,000 in the first month, the record company pulled out. Later, CPBS dropped the word Phonograph from its title, creat- ing the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS).

In 1928, William Paley, the twenty-seven-year-old son of Sam Paley, owner of a Philadelphia cigar company, bought a controlling interest in CBS to sponsor their cigar brand, La Palina. One of Paley’s first moves was to hire the public relations pioneer (and Sigmund Freud’s nephew) Edward Bernays to polish the new network’s image. (Bernays played a significant role in the development of the public relations industry; see Chapter 11.) Paley and Bernays modified a concept called option time, in which CBS paid affiliate stations $50 per hour for an option on a portion of their time. The network pro- vided programs to the affiliates and sold ad space or sponsorships to various product companies. In theory, CBS could now control up to twenty-four hours a day of its affiliates’ radio time. Some affiliates received thousands of dollars per week merely to serve as conduits for CBS programs and ads. Because NBC was still charg- ing some of its affiliates as much as $96 a week to carry its network programs, the CBS offer was extremely appealing.

By 1933, Paley’s efforts had netted CBS more than ninety affili- ates, many of them defecting from NBC. Paley also concentrated on developing news programs and entertainment shows, particularly soap operas and comedy-variety series. In the process, CBS suc- cessfully raided NBC, not just for affiliates but for top talent as well. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Paley lured a number of radio stars from NBC, including Jack Benny, Frank Sinatra, George Burns, Gracie Allen, and Groucho Marx. During World War II, Edward R.

“I have in mind a plan of development which would make radio a ‘household utility’ in the same sense as the piano or phonograph. The idea is to bring music into the house by wireless.”

DAVID SARNOFF, AGE 24, 1915 MEMO

CBS HELPED ESTABLISH ITSELF as a premier radio network by attracting top talent like comedic duo George Burns and Gracie Allen from NBC. They first brought their “Dumb Dora” and straight man act from stage to radio in 1929, and then continued on various radio programs in the 1930s and 1940s, with the most well known being The Burns and Allen Show. CBS also reaped the benefits when Burns and Allen moved their eponymous show to television in 1950.

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Murrow’s powerful firsthand news reports from bomb-riddled London established CBS as the premier radio news network, a reputation it carried forward to television. In 1949, near the end of big-time network radio, CBS finally surpassed NBC as the highest-rated network. Although Wil- liam Paley had intended to run CBS only for six months to help get it off the ground, he ultimately ran it for more than fifty years.

Bringing Order to Chaos with the Radio Act of 1927 In the 1920s, as radio moved from narrowcasting to broadcasting, the battle for more frequency space and less channel interference intensified. Manufacturers, engineers, station operators, network executives, and the listening public demanded action. Many wanted more sweeping regulation than the simple licensing function granted under the Radio Act of 1912, which gave the Commerce Department little power to deny a license or to unclog the airwaves.

Beginning in 1924, Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover ordered radio stations to share time by setting aside certain frequencies for entertainment and news and others for farm and weather reports. To challenge Hoover, a station in Chicago jammed the airwaves, intentionally moving its signal onto an unauthorized frequency. In 1926, the courts decided that based on the existing Radio Act, Hoover had the power only to grant licenses, not to restrict stations from operating. Within the year, two hundred new stations clogged the airwaves, creating a chaotic period in which nearly all radios had poor reception. By early 1927, sales of radio sets had de- clined sharply.

To restore order to the airwaves, Congress passed the Radio Act of 1927, which stated an extremely important principle—licensees did not own their channels but could only license them as long as they operated to serve the “public interest, convenience, or necessity.” To over- see licenses and negotiate channel problems, the 1927 act created the Federal Radio Commis- sion (FRC), whose members were appointed by the president. Although the FRC was intended as a temporary committee, it grew into a powerful regulatory agency. In 1934, with passage of the Communications Act of 1934, the FRC became the Federal Communications Commis- sion (FCC). Its jurisdiction covered not only radio but also the telephone and the telegraph (and later television, cable, and the Internet). More significantly, by this time Congress and the president had sided with the already-powerful radio networks and acceded to a system of advertising-supported commercial broadcasting as best serving “public interest, convenience, or necessity,” overriding the concerns of educational, labor, and citizen broadcasting advo- cates.12 (See Table 4.1.)

In 1941, an activist FCC went after the networks. Declaring that NBC and CBS could no lon- ger force affiliates to carry programs they did not want, the government outlawed the practice of option time that Paley had used to build CBS into a major network. The FCC also demanded that RCA sell one of its two NBC networks. RCA and NBC claimed that the rulings would bank- rupt them. The Supreme Court sided with the FCC, however, and RCA eventually sold NBC-Blue to a group of businessmen for $8 million in the mid-1940s. It became the American Broadcast- ing Company (ABC). These government crackdowns brought long-overdue reform to the radio industry, but they had not come soon enough to prevent considerable damage to noncommer- cial radio.

The Golden Age of Radio Many programs on television today were initially formulated for radio. The first weather fore- casts and farm reports on radio began in the 1920s. Regularly scheduled radio news analysis started in 1927, with H. V. Kaltenborn, a reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle, providing commentary on AT&T’s WEAF. The first regular network news analysis began on CBS in 1930, featuring Low- ell Thomas, who would remain on radio for forty-four years.

“Overnight, it seemed, everyone had gone into broadcasting: newspapers, banks, public utilities, department stores, universities and colleges, cities and towns, pharmacies, creameries, and hospitals.”

TOM LEWIS, RADIO HISTORIAN

“It is my personal opinion that American listeners would not stand for the payment of a receiving-set [radio] tax. It is my judgment that it would be most unpopular in this country. It is not the American way of accomplishing things.”

ANNING S. PRALL, CHAIRMAN OF THE FCC, 1936

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Early Radio Programming Early on, only a handful of stations operated in most large radio markets, and popular stations were affiliated with CBS, NBC-Red, or NBC-Blue. Many large stations employed their own in- house orchestras and aired live music daily. Listeners had favorite evening programs, usually fifteen minutes long, to which they would tune in each night. Families gathered around the radio to hear such shows as Amos ’n’ Andy, The Shadow, The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet, and Fibber McGee and Molly, or one of President Franklin Roosevelt’s fireside chats.

Among the most popular early programs on radio, the variety show was the forerunner to pop- ular TV shows like the Ed Sullivan Show. The variety show, developed from stage acts and vaudeville, began with the Eveready Hour in 1923 on WEAF. Considered experimental, the program presented classical music, minstrel shows, comedy sketches, and dramatic readings. Stars from vaudeville, musical comedy, and New York theater and opera would occasionally make guest appearances.

By the 1930s, studio-audience quiz shows—Professor Quiz and the Old Time Spelling Bee—had emerged. Other quiz formats, used on Information Please and Quiz Kids, featured guest panelists. The quiz formats were later copied by television, particularly in the 1950s. Truth or Consequences, based on a nineteenth-century parlor game, first aired on radio in 1940 and featured guests per- forming goofy stunts. It ran for seventeen years on radio and another twenty-seven on television, influencing TV stunt shows like CBS’s Beat the Clock in the 1950s and NBC’s Fear Factor in the early 2000s.

Dramatic programs, mostly radio plays that were broadcast live from theaters, developed as early as 1922. Historians mark the appearance of Clara, Lu, and Em on WGN in 1931 as the first soap opera. One year later, Colgate-Palmolive bought the program, put it on NBC, and began selling the soap products that gave this dramatic genre its distinctive nickname. Early “soaps” were fifteen minutes in length and ran five or six days a week. It wasn’t until mid-1960s televi- sion that soaps were extended to thirty minutes, and by the late 1970s some had expanded to sixty minutes. Still a fixture on CBS, Guiding Light actually began on radio in 1937 and moved to television in 1952 (the only radio soap to successfully make the transition). By 1940, sixty differ- ent soap operas occupied nearly eighty hours of network radio time each week.

Most radio programs had a single sponsor that created and produced each show. The networks distributed these programs live around the country, charging the sponsors advertising

Wireless Ship Required U.S. seagoing ships carrying more than fifty Saved lives at sea, including more Act of 1910 passengers and traveling more than two hundred miles off than seven hundred rescued by ships the coast to be equipped with wireless equipment with a responding to the Titanic’s distress signals one-hundred-mile range. two years later.

Radio Act of 1912 Required radio operators to obtain a license, gave the Commerce The federal government began to assert control Department the power to deny a license, and began a over radio. Penalties were established for uniform system of assigning call letters to identify stations. stations that interfere with other stations’ signals.

Radio Act of 1927 Established the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) as a First expressed the now-fundamental temporary agency to oversee licenses and negotiate channel principle that licensees did not own their assignments. channels but could only license them as long as they operated to serve the “public interest, convenience, or necessity.”

Communications Established the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Congress tacitly agreed to a system of Act of 1934 to replace the FRC. The FCC regulated radio, the telephone, advertising-supported commercial the telegraph, and later television, cable, and the Internet. broadcasting despite concerns of the public.

Telecommunications Eliminated most radio and television station ownership rules, Enormous national and regional station Act of 1996 some dating back more than fifty years. groups formed, dramatically changing the sound and localism of radio in the United States.

Act Provisions Effects

TABLE 4.1 MAJOR ACTS IN THE HISTORY OF U.S. RADIO

“There are three things which I shall never forget about America—the Rocky Mountains, Niagara Falls, and Amos ‘n’ Andy.”

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, IRISH PLAYWRIGHT

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fees. Many shows—the Palmolive Hour, General Motors Family Party, the Lucky Strike Orchestra, and the Eveready Hour among them—were named after the sole sponsor’s product.

Radio Programming as a Cultural Mirror The situation comedy, a major staple of TV programming today, began on radio in the mid- 1920s. By the early 1930s, the most popular comedy was Amos ’n’ Andy, which started on Chicago radio in 1925 before moving to NBC-Blue in 1929. Amos ’n’ Andy was based on the conventions of the nineteenth-century minstrel show and featured black characters stereotyped as shiftless and stupid. Created as a blackface stage act by two white comedians, Charles Correll and Freeman Gosden, the program was criticized as racist. But NBC and the program’s producers claimed that Amos ’n’ Andy was as popular among black audiences as among white listeners.13

Amos ’n’ Andy also launched the idea of the serial show: a program that featured continu- ing story lines from one day to the next. The format was soon copied by soap operas and other radio dramas. The show aired six nights a week from 7:00 to 7:15 P.M. During the show’s first year on the network, radio-set sales rose nearly 25 percent nationally. To keep people com- ing to restaurants and movie theaters, owners broadcast Amos ’n’ Andy in lobbies, rest rooms, and entryways. Early radio research estimated that the program aired in more than half of all radio homes in the nation during the 1930–31 season, making it the most popular radio series in

FIRESIDE CHATS This giant bank of radio network microphones makes us wonder today how President Franklin D. Roosevelt managed to project such an intimate and reassuring tone in his famous fireside chats. Conceived originally to promote FDR’s New Deal policies amid the Great Depression, these chats were delivered between 1933 and 1944 and touched on topics of national interest. Roosevelt was the first president to effectively use broadcasting to communicate with citizens; he also gave nearly a thousand press conferences during his twelve-plus years as president, revealing a strong commitment to use media and news to speak early and often with the American people.

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history. In 1951, it made a brief transition to television (Correll and Gosden sold the rights to CBS for $1 million), becoming the first TV series to have an entirely black cast. But amidst a strength- ening Civil Rights movement and a formal protest by the NAACP (which argued that “every character is either a clown or a crook”), CBS canceled the program in 1953.14

The Authority of Radio The most famous single radio broadcast of all time was an adaptation of H. G. Wells’s War of the Worlds on the radio series Mercury Theater of the Air. Orson Welles produced, hosted, and acted in this popular series, which adapted science fiction, mystery, and historical adventure dramas for radio. On Halloween eve in 1938, the twenty-three-year-old Welles aired the 1898 Martian invasion novel in the style of a radio news program. For people who missed the open- ing disclaimer, the program sounded like a real news report, with eyewitness accounts of battles between Martian invaders and the U.S. Army.

The program created a panic that lasted several hours. In New Jersey, some people walked through the streets with wet towels around their heads for protection from deadly Martian heat rays. In New York, young men reported to their National Guard headquarters to prepare for battle. Across the nation, calls jammed police switchboards. Afterward, Orson Welles, once the radio voice of The Shadow, used the notoriety of this broadcast to launch a film career. Meanwhile, the FCC called for stricter warnings both before and during programs that imitated the style of radio news.

EARLY RADIO’S EFFECT AS A MASS MEDIUM On Halloween eve in 1938, Orson Welles’s radio dramatization of War of the Worlds (far left) created a panic up and down the East Coast, especially in Grover’s Mill, New Jersey— the setting for the fictional Martian invasion that many listeners assumed was real. A seventy-six-year-old Grover’s Mill resident (left) guards a warehouse against alien invaders.

Older media forms do not generally disappear when confronted by newer forms. Instead, they adapt. Although radio threatened sound recording in the 1920s, the recording industry ad- justed to the economic and social challenges posed by radio’s arrival. Remarkably, the arrival

Radio Reinvents Itself

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of television in the 1950s marked the only time in media history in which a new medium stole virtually every national programming and advertising strategy from an older medium. Television snatched radio’s advertisers, program genres, major celebrities, and large evening audiences. The TV set even physi- cally displaced the radio as the living room centerpiece across America. Nevertheless, radio adapted and continued to reach an audience.

The story of radio’s evolution and survival is especially im- portant today, as newspapers and magazines appear online and as publishers produce audio books and e-books for new genera- tions of “readers.” In contemporary culture, we have grown accustomed to such media convergence, but to best understand this blurring of the boundaries between media forms, it is use- ful to look at the 1950s and the ways in which radio responded to the advent of television.

Transistors Make Radio Portable A key development in radio’s adaptation to television occurred with the invention of the transistor by Bell Laboratories in 1947. Transistors were small electrical devices that, like vacuum tubes, could receive and amplify radio signals. However, they used less power and produced less heat than vacuum tubes, and they were more durable and less expensive. Best of all, they were tiny. Transistors, which also revolutionized hearing aids, constituted the first step in replacing bulky and delicate tubes, leading eventually to today’s integrated circuits.

Texas Instruments marketed the first transistor radio in 1953 for about $40. Using even smaller transistors, Sony introduced the pocket radio in 1957. But it wasn’t until the 1960s that transistor radios became cheaper than conventional tube and battery radios. For a while, the term transistor became a synonym for a small, portable radio.

The development of transistors let radio go where television could not—to the beach, to the office, into bedrooms and bathrooms, and into nearly all new cars. (Before the transistor, car radios were a luxury item.) By the 1960s, most radio listening took place outside the home.

The FM Revolution and Edwin Armstrong By the time the broadcast industry launched commercial television in the 1950s, many people, including David Sarnoff of RCA, were predicting radio’s demise. To fund television’s develop- ment and to protect his radio holdings, Sarnoff had even delayed a dramatic breakthrough in broadcast sound, what he himself called a “revolution”—FM radio.

Edwin Armstrong, who first discovered and developed FM radio in the 1920s and early 1930s, is often considered the most prolific and influential inventor in radio history. He under- stood the impact of De Forest’s vacuum tube, and he used it to invent an amplifying system that enabled radio receivers to pick up distant signals. Armstrong’s innovations rendered obsolete the enormous alternators used for generating power in early radio transmitters. In 1922, he sold a “super” version of his circuit to RCA for $200,000 and sixty thousand shares of RCA stock, which made him a millionaire as well as RCA’s largest private stockholder.

Armstrong also worked on the major problem of radio reception—electrical interference. Between 1930 and 1933, the inventor filed five patents on FM, or frequency modulation. Offering

ADVERTISEMENTS for pocket transistor radios, which became popular in the 1950s, emphasized their portability.

“Armstrong was a lone experimenter, Sarnoff a company man.”

ERIK BARNOUW, MEDIA HISTORIAN

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static-free radio reception, FM supplied greater fidelity and clarity than AM, making FM ideal for music. AM, or amplitude modulation (modulation refers to the varia- tion in waveforms), stressed the volume, or height, of radio waves; FM accentuated the pitch, or distance, between radio waves (see Figure 4.2).

Although David Sarnoff, the president of RCA, thought that television would replace radio, he helped Armstrong set up the first experimental FM station atop the Empire State Building in New York City. Eventually, though, Sarnoff thwarted FM’s development (which he was able to do because RCA had an option on Armstrong’s new patents). Instead, in 1935 Sarnoff threw RCA’s considerable weight behind the development of television. With the FCC allocating and reassigning scarce frequency spaces, RCA wanted to ensure that channels went to television before they went to FM. But most of all, Sarnoff wanted to protect RCA’s existing AM empire. Given the high costs of converting to FM and the revenue needed for TV experiments, Sarnoff decided to close down Armstrong’s station.

Armstrong forged ahead without RCA. He founded a new FM station and advised other engineers, who started more than twenty experimental stations between 1935 and the early 1940s. In 1941, the FCC approved limited space allocations for commercial FM licenses. During the next few years, FM grew in fits and starts. Between 1946 and early 1949, the number of com- mercial FM stations expanded from 48 to 700. But then the FCC moved FM’s frequency space to a new band on the electromagnetic spectrum, rendering some 400,000 prewar FM receiver sets useless. FM’s future became uncertain, and by 1954 the number of FM stations had fallen to 560.

On January 31, 1954, Edwin Armstrong, weary from years of legal skirmishes over patents with RCA, Lee De Forest, and others, wrote a note apologizing to his wife, removed the air conditioner from his thirteenth-story New York apartment window, and jumped to his death. A month later, David Sarnoff announced record profits of $850 million for RCA, with TV sales ac- counting for 54 percent of the company’s earnings. In the early 1960s, the FCC opened up more spectrum space for the superior sound of FM, infusing new life into radio.

Although AM stations had greater reach, they could not match the crisp fidelity of FM, which made FM preferable for music. In the early 1970s, about 70 percent of listeners tuned almost exclusively to AM radio. By the 1980s, however, FM had surpassed AM in profitability. By the 2000s, more than 75 percent of all listeners preferred FM, and about 3,600 commercial and almost 2,900 educational FM stations were in operation. The expansion of FM represented one of the chief ways radio survived television and Sarnoff’s gloomy predictions.

The Rise of Format and Top 40 Radio Live and recorded music had long been radio’s single biggest staple, accounting for 48 percent of all programming in 1938. Although live music on radio was generally considered superior to recorded music, early disc jockeys made a significant contribution to the latter. They demon- strated that music alone could drive radio. In fact, when television snatched radio’s program ideas and national sponsors, radio’s dependence on recorded music became a necessity and helped the medium survive the 1950s.

FIGURE 4.2 AM AND FM WAVES Source: Adapted from David Cheshire, The Video Manual, 1982.

“Radio affects most people intimately, person-to-person, offering a world of unspoken communication between writer- speaker and listener. That is the immediate aspect of radio. A private experience.”

MARSHALL MCLUHAN, UNDERSTANDING MEDIA, 1964

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As early as 1949, station owner Todd Storz in Omaha, Nebraska, experimented with formula-driven radio, or format radio. Under this system, management rather than deejays controlled programming each hour. When Storz and his program manager noticed that bar patrons and waitresses repeatedly played certain favorite songs from the forty records avail- able in a jukebox, they began researching record sales to identify the most popular tunes. From observing jukebox culture, Storz hit on the idea of rotation: playing the top songs many times during the day. By the mid-1950s, the management-control idea combined with the rock-and- roll explosion, and the Top 40 format was born. Although the term Top 40 derived from the number of records stored in a jukebox, this format came to refer to the forty most popular hits in a given week as measured by record sales.

As format radio grew, program managers combined rapid deejay chatter with the best- selling songs of the day and occasional oldies—popular songs from a few months earlier. By the early 1960s, to avoid “dead air,” managers asked deejays to talk over the beginning and the end of a song so that listeners would feel less compelled to switch stations. Ads, news, weather forecasts, and station identifications were all designed to fit a consistent station environment. Listeners, tuning in at any moment, would recognize the station by its distinc- tive sound.

In format radio, management carefully coordinates, or programs, each hour, dictating what the deejay will do at various intervals throughout each hour of the day (see Figure 4.3). Management creates a program log—once called a hot clock in radio jargon—that deejays must follow. By the mid-1960s, one study had determined that in a typical hour on Top 40, listen- ers could expect to hear about twenty ads; numerous weather, time, and contest announce- ments; multiple recitations of the station’s call letters; about three minutes of news; and approximately twelve songs.

Radio managers further sectioned off program- ming into day parts, which typically consisted of time blocks covering 6 to 10 A.M., 10 A.M. to 3 P.M., 3 to 7 P.M., and 7 P.M. to midnight. Each day part, or block, was programmed through ratings research according to who was listening. For instance, a Top 40 station would feature its top deejays in the morning and afternoon periods when audiences, many riding in cars, were largest. From 10 A.M. to 3 P.M., research determined that women at home and secretaries at work usually controlled the dial, so program manag- ers, capitalizing on the gender stereotypes of the day, played more romantic ballads and less hard rock. Teenagers tended to be heavy evening listeners, so program managers often discarded news breaks at this time, since research showed that teens turned the dial when news came on.

Critics of format radio argued that only the top songs received play and that lesser-known songs

deserving air time received meager attention. Although a few popular star deejays continued to play a role in programming, many others quit when managers introduced formats. Owners ap- proached programming as a science, but deejays considered it an art form. Program managers argued that deejays had different tastes from those of the average listener and therefore could not be fully trusted to know popular audience tastes. The owners’ position, which generated more revenue, triumphed.

********************************* MusicMaster *********************************

93.5 The Mix 12N-1PM

Lunch Time Rewind LIVE

0:00 01890 DON HENLEY :26/5:59/FADE SUNSET GRILL

5:59 00617 ROBERT PALMER :24/3:45/FADE ADDICTED TO LOVE

9:44 00852 JOHN LENNON :14/2:49/FADE IMAGINE

12:33 00405 MADONNA :17/:32/4:00/FADE PAPA DON’T PREACH

16:33 02252 EDDIE MONEY 15/3:28/COLD BABY HOLD ON -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20:01 STOP SET --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

22:01 02225 DOOBIE BROTHERS 11/3:24/FADE TAKE ME IN YOUR ARMS

25:25 02396 STEVIE WONDER 07/3:18/FADE ISN’T SHE LOVELY

28:43 01679 A-HA 08/3:42/FADE TAKE ON ME

32:25 00110 THE GUESS WHO :21/3:39/FADE THESE EYES

FIGURE 4.3 RADIO PROGRAM LOG FOR AN ADULT CONTEMPORARY (AC) STATION Source: KCVM, Cedar Falls, IA, 2010.

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T he origins of contemporary political talk radio can be traced to three phenomena of the 1980s. The first of these involved AM music stations getting absolutely murdered by FM, which could broad- cast music in stereo and allowed for much better fidelity on high and low notes. The human voice, on the other hand, is midrange and doesn’t require high fidelity. The eighties’ prolifera- tion of talk formats on the AM band also provided new careers for some music deejays—e.g., Don Imus, Morton Downey Jr.—whose chatty personas didn’t fit well with FM’s all- about- the- music ethos.

The second big factor was the re- peal, late in Ron- ald Reagan’s sec- ond term, of what was known as the Fairness Doctrine. This was a 1949 FCC rule designed to minimize any possible restrictions on free speech caused by limited access to broad- casting outlets. The idea was that, as one of the conditions for receiving an FCC broadcast license, a station had to “devote reasonable attention to the coverage of controversial issues of public importance,” and consequently had to provide “reasonable, although not necessarily equal” opportunities for opposing sides to express their views. Because of the Fairness Doctrine, talk stations had to hire and program symmetrically: if you had a three- hour

program whose host’s politics were on one side of the ideological spectrum, you had to have another long-form pro- gram whose host more or less spoke for the other side. Weirdly enough, up through the mid-eighties it was usually the U.S. right that benefited most from the Doctrine. Pioneer talk syndicator Ed McLaughlin, who managed San Francisco’s KGO in the 1960s, recalls that “I had more liberals on the air than I had conservatives or even moderates for that matter, and I had a hell of a time finding the other voice.”

The Fairness Doctrine’s repeal was part of the

sweeping deregula- tions of the Reagan

era, which aimed to liberate all sorts of industries from government interference and allow them to

compete freely in the marketplace. The

old, Rooseveltian logic of the Doctrine had been that

since the airwaves belonged to everyone, a license to profit from those airwaves conferred on the broadcast industry some special obligation to serve the public interest. Commercial radio broadcasting was not, in other words, originally conceived as just another for-profit industry; it was sup- posed to meet a higher standard of so- cial responsibility. After 1987, though, just another industry is pretty much what radio became, and its only real re- sponsibility now is to attract and retain listeners in order to generate revenue.

In other words, the sort of distinction explicitly drawn by FCC Chairman Newton Minow in the 1960s—namely, that between “the public interest” and “merely what interests the public”—no longer exists.

More or less on the heels of the Fair- ness Doctrine’s repeal came the West Coast and then national syndication of The Rush Limbaugh Show through Mr. McLaughlin’s EFM Media. Lim- baugh is the third great progenitor of today’s political talk radio partly because he’s a host of extraordinary, once-in-a-generation talent and charisma—bright, loquacious, witty, complexly authoritative—whose show’s blend of news, entertainment, and partisan analysis became the model for legions of imitators. But he was also the first great promulgator of the Mainstream Media’s Liberal Bias (MMLB) idea. This turned out to be a brilliantly effective rhetorical move, since the MMLB concept functioned simultaneously as a standard around which Rush’s audience could rally, as an articulation of the need for righ- twing (i.e., unbiased) media, and as a mechanism by which any criticism or refutation of conservative ideas could be dismissed (either as biased or as the product of indoctrination by biased me- dia). Boiled way down, the MMLB thesis is able both to exploit and to perpetu- ate many conservatives’ dissatisfaction with extant media sources—and it’s this dissatisfaction that cements political talk radio’s large and loyal audience.

Source: Excerpted from David Foster Wallace, “Host: The Origins of Talk Radio,” Atlantic, April 2005, 66–68.

Host: The Origins of Talk Radio by David Foster Wallace

CASE STUDY

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Resisting the Top 40 The expansion of FM in the mid-1960s created room for experimenting, particularly with clas- sical music, jazz, blues, and non–Top 40 rock songs. Progressive rock emerged as an alterna- tive to conventional formats. Many noncommercial stations broadcast from college campuses, where student deejays and managers rejected the commercialism associated with Top 40 tunes and began playing lesser-known alternative music and longer album cuts (such as Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row” and The Doors’ “Light My Fire”). Until that time, most rock on radio had been consigned almost exclusively to Top 40 AM formats, with song length averaging about three minutes.

Experimental FM stations, both commercial and noncommercial, offered a cultural space for hard-edged political folk music and for rock music that commented on the Civil Rights move- ment and protested America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. By the 1970s, however, progres- sive rock had been copied, tamed, and absorbed by mainstream radio under the format labeled album-oriented rock (AOR). By 1972, AOR-driven album sales accounted for more than 85 percent of the retail record business. By the 1980s, as first-generation rock and rollers aged and became more affluent, AOR stations became less political and played mostly white, post-Beatles music featuring such groups as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Cream, and Queen.15 Today, AOR has been subsumed under the more general classic rock format.

Contemporary radio sounds very different from its predecessor. In contrast to the few stations per market in the 1930s, most large markets today include more than forty sta- tions that vie for listener loyalty. With the exception of national network–sponsored news segments and nationally syndicated programs, most programming is locally produced and heavily dependent on the music industry for content. Although a few radio personalities, such as Glenn Beck, Ryan Seacrest, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Joyner, Tavis Smiley, and Jim Rome, are nationally prominent, local deejays and their music are the stars at most radio stations.

However, listeners today are unlike radio’s first audiences in several ways. First, listeners in the 1930s tuned in to their favorite shows at set times. Listeners today do not say, “Gee, my

favorite song is coming on at 8 P.M., so I’d better be home to listen.” Instead, radio has become a secondary, or background, medium that follows the rhythms of daily life. Radio programmers today worry about channel cruising—listeners’ tendency to search the dial until they find a song they like.

Second, in the 1930s, peak listening time occurred during the evening hours— dubbed prime time in the TV era—when people were home from work and school. Now, the heaviest radio listening occurs during drive time, between 6 and 9 A.M. and 4 and 7 P.M., when people are commuting to and from work or school.

Third, stations today are more specialized. Listeners are loyal to favorite sta- tions, music formats, and even radio personalities, rather than to specific shows.

People generally listen to only four or five stations that target them. More than fourteen thousand radio stations now operate in the United States, customizing

their sounds to reach niche audiences through format specialization and alternative programming.

The Sounds of Commercial Radio

RYAN SEACREST may be best known for his job hosting TV’s American Idol, but he began his career in radio when he hosted a local radio show while attending the University of Georgia. In the style of his own idols—Dick Clark and Casey Kasem—Seacrest now hosts two nationally syndicated radio shows, On Air with Ryan Seacrest and American Top 40, in addition to his television projects.

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Format Specialization Stations today use a variety of formats based on managed program logs and day parts. All told, more than forty different radio formats, plus variations, serve diverse groups of listeners (see Figure 4.4). To please advertisers, who want to know exactly who is listening, formats usually target audiences according to their age, income, gender, or race/ ethnicity. Radio’s specialization enables advertisers to reach smaller target audiences at costs that are much lower than those for television.

Targeting listeners has become extremely competitive, however, because forty or fifty sta- tions may be available in a large radio market. About 10 percent of all stations across the country switch formats each year in an effort to find a formula that generates more advertising money. Some stations, particularly those in large cities, even rent blocks of time to various local ethnic or civic groups; this enables the groups to dictate their own formats and sell ads.

News, Information, and Talk Radio The nation’s fastest-growing format throughout much of the 1990s was the news/talk/informa- tion format (see “Case Study—Host: The Origins of Talk Radio” on page 127). In 1987, only 170 radio stations operated formats dominated by either news programs or talk shows, which tend to appeal to adults over age thirty-five (except for sports talk programs, which draw mostly male sports fans of all ages). Buoyed by the notoriety and popularity of personalities like Tavis Smiley and Rush Limbaugh, more than 1,500 stations used the format by 2010, and it was the most popular format (by number of listeners) in the nation (see Table 4.2). A news/talk/information format, though more expensive to produce than a music format, appeals to advertisers looking to target working- and middle-class adult consumers. Nevertheless, most radio stations continue to be driven by a variety of less expensive music formats.

Music Formats The adult contemporary (AC) format, also known as middle-of-the-road or MOR, is among radio’s oldest and most popular formats, reaching about 8.2 percent of all listeners, most of them over age forty, with an eclectic mix of news, talk, oldies, and soft rock music—what Broadcasting

Other 35.2

News/Talk/Information 12.6%

Country 12.5%

Adult Contemporary (AC) 8.2%

Pop Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR) 5.9%

Classic Rock 4.7%

Classic Hits 3.9% Rhythmic CHR 3.7% Urban AC 3.6% Hot AC 3.5% Urban Contemporary 3.3% Mexican Regional 2.9%

Rush Limbaugh (Conservative) 14.5 13.5 15

Sean Hannity (Conservative) 11.75 12.5 14

Glenn Beck (Conservative) * 3 10

Dr. Laura Schlessinger (General Advice) 8.5 8 9 (Ended show in December 2010)

Michael Savage (Conservative) 7 8.25 8.5

Mark Levin (Conservative) N/A 1 8.5

Dave Ramsey (Financial Advice) * 2.75 8

Laura Ingraham (Conservative) 1.25 5 6

Neal Boortz (Conservative) * * 6

Talk Show Host 2003 2006 2010

TABLE 4.2 TALK RADIO WEEKLY AUDIENCE (IN MILLIONS) Source: Talkers magazine, “Top Talk Radio Audiences,” Spring 2010. Note: * = Information unavailable; N/A = Talk host not nationally broadcast.

FIGURE 4.4 THE MOST POPULAR RADIO FORMATS IN THE UNITED STATES AMONG PERSONS AGE TWELVE AND OLDER Source: Arbitron, Radio Today, 2009 Edition. Note: Based on listener shares for primary AM and FM stations, plus HD stations and Internet streams of radio stations.

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magazine describes as “not too soft, not too loud, not too fast, not too slow, not too hard, not too lush, not too old, not too new.” Variations on the AC format include urban AC, hot AC, rhythmic AC, modern AC, and smooth AC. Now encompassing everything from rap to pop punk songs, Top 40 radio—also called contemporary hit radio (CHR)—still appeals to many teens and young adults. Since the mid-1980s, however, these stations have lost ground steadily as younger generations have followed music first on MTV and now online rather than on radio.

The country format claims the most stations—almost 1,700. Many stations are in tiny markets where country is traditionally the default format for communities with only one radio station. Country music has old roots in radio, starting in 1925 with the influential Grand Ole Opry program on WSM in Nashville. Although Top 40 drove country music out of many radio markets in the 1950s, the growth of FM in the 1960s brought it back, as station managers looked for market niches not served by rock music. As diverse as rock music, country today includes such subdivisions as classic country, new country, and southern gospel.

Many formats appeal to particular ethnic or racial groups. In 1947, WDIA in Memphis was the first station to program exclusively for black listeners. Now called urban contemporary, this format targets a wide variety of African American listeners, primarily in large cities. Urban contemporary, which typically plays popular dance, rap, R&B, and hip-hop music (featuring performers like Rihanna and Ludacris), also subdivides by age, featuring an Urban AC category with performers like Maxwell, Alicia Keys, and Mary J. Blige.

Spanish-language radio, one of radio’s fastest-growing formats, is concentrated mostly in large Hispanic markets such as Miami, New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas (where KCOR, the first all-Spanish-language station, originated in San Anto- nio in 1947). Besides talk shows and news segments in Spanish, this format features a variety of Spanish, Caribbean, and Latin American musical styles, including calypso, flamenco, mariachi, merengue, reggae, samba, salsa, and Tejano.

In addition, today there are other formats that are spin-offs from AOR. Classic rock serves up rock favorites from the mid-1960s through the 1980s to the baby-boom generation and other listeners who have outgrown the Top 40. The oldies format originally served adults who grew up on 1950s and early 1960s rock and roll. As that audience has aged, oldies formats now target

EDDIE “PIOLÍN” SOTELO is a popular Los Angeles radio personality on Univision-owned KSCA (101.9 FM), which has a regional Mexican format and is the highest-rated station in the market. Sotelo is a major supporter of immigrant rights and helped to organize a huge rally in 2006. His nickname, “Piolín,” means “Tweety Bird” in Spanish.

“National Public Radio . . . has bolstered its listener base over the last ten years, showing a steady increase in audience in contrast to other mainstream media companies.”

THE BOND BUYER 2010

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younger audiences with the classic hits format featuring songs from the 1970s and 1980s. The alternative music format recaptures some of the experimental approach of the FM stations of the 1960s, although with much more controlled playlists, and has helped to introduce artists such as the Dead Weather and Cage the Elephant.

Research indicates that most people identify closely with the music they listened to as ado- lescents and young adults. This tendency partially explains why classic hits and classic rock sta- tions combined have surpassed CHR stations today. It also helps to explain the recent nostalgia for music from the 1980s and early 1990s.

Nonprofit Radio and NPR Although commercial radio (particularly those stations owned by huge radio conglomerates) dominates the radio spectrum, nonprofit radio maintains a voice. But the road to viability for nonprofit radio in the United States has not been easy. In the 1930s, the Wagner-Hatfield Amend- ment to the 1934 Communications Act intended to set aside 25 percent of radio for a wide variety of nonprofit stations. When the amendment was defeated in 1935, the future of educa- tional and noncommercial radio looked bleak. Many nonprofits had sold out to for-profit owners during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The stations that remained were often banished from the air during the evening hours or assigned weak signals by federal regulators who favored commercial owners and their lobbying agents. Still, nonprofit public radio survived. Today, more than three thousand nonprofit stations operate, most of them on the FM band.

The Early Years of Nonprofit Radio Two government rulings, both in 1948, aided nonprofit radio. First, the government began authorizing noncommercial licenses to stations not affiliated with a labor, religion, education, or civic group. The first license went to Lewis Kimball Hill, a radio reporter and pacifist during World War II who started the Pacifica Foundation to run experimental public stations. Pacifica stations, like Hill, have often challenged the status quo in radio as well as in government. Most notably, in the 1950s they aired the poetry, prose, and music of performers considered radical, left-wing, or communist who were blacklisted by television and seldom acknowledged by AM stations. Over the years, Pacifica has also been fined and reprimanded by the FCC and Congress for airing programs that critics considered inappropriate for public airwaves. Today, Pacifica has more than one hundred affiliate stations.

Second, the FCC approved 10-watt FM stations. Prior to this time, radio stations had to have at least 250 watts to get licensed. A 10-watt station with a broadcast range of only about seven miles took very little capital to operate, so more people could participate, and they became training sites for students interested in broadcasting. Although the FCC stopped licensing new 10-watt stations in 1978, about one hundred longtime 10-watters are still in operation.

Creation of the First Noncommercial Networks During the 1960s, nonprofit broadcasting found a Congress sympathetic to an old idea: using radio and television as educational tools. As a result, National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) were created as the first noncommercial networks. Under the provisions of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), NPR and PBS were mandated to provide alternatives to commercial broadcasting. Now, NPR’s popular news and interview programs, Morning Edition and All Things Considered, are thriving, and they contribute to the network’s audience of thirty-four million listeners per week.

MICHELE NORRIS is one of the hosts on NPR’s All Things Considered, a daily news show that features a “trademark mix of news, interviews, commentaries, reviews and offbeat features.” All Things Considered has been on the air since 1971 and is one of NPR’s most popular programs.

“We have a huge responsibility to keep the airwaves open for what I think is the majority— representing the voices that are locked out of the mainstream media.”

AMY GOODMAN, CO-HOST OF RADIO’S DEMOCRACY NOW! 2001

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Radio Mogadishu last three years, earning Somalia the title “Africa’s deadliest country for the media” from the international organiza- tion Reporters Without Borders.1 The media workers under attack include radio workers, who were threatened by militias in April 2010 to stop playing foreign programs from the BBC and Voice of America, and then to stop playing all music (which was deemed un-Islamic) or face “serious conse- quences.”2 Although most radio sta- tions in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, have succumbed to the threats, they

have found creative (and ironic) ways to jab back at the militants, like

playing sound effects instead of music to introduce

programs. A newscast, for example, might be introduced by recorded gunshots, animal noises, or car sounds.

One station, Radio Mogadishu, is still bravely

broadcasting music and independent newscasts.

The station is supported by the transitional government as a critical

tool in bringing democracy back to the country, but radio work in the name of democracy has never been more dangerous than it is in Somalia today. “Radio Mogadishu’s 100 or so em- ployees are marked men and women, because the insurgents associate them with the government,” the New York Times reported.3 Many of the journal- ists, sound engineers, and deejays eat and sleep at the station for fear of be- ing killed; some have not left the radio

GLOBAL VILLAGE

station compound to visit their families for months, even though they live in the same city. Their fears are well-founded: One veteran reporter who still lived at home was gunned down by hooded as- sassins as he returned to his house one night in May 2010.

Radio Mogadishu (in English, Somali, and Arabic on the Web at http://radio muqdisho.net/) speaks to the enduring power of independent radio around the globe and its particular connec- tion to Somali citizens, for whom it is a cultural lifeline. The BBC reports that Somali citizens love pop music (like that of popular Somali artists Abdi Shire Jama (Joogle) and K’Naan, who record abroad), and they resent being told that they cannot listen to it on the radio. Somali bus drivers reportedly sneak music radio for their passengers, turning the music on and off depending on whether they are in a safe, government-controlled district or a dangerous, militia-controlled area. The news portion of radio broadcasts is also important, especially in a country where only about 1 percent of the population has Internet access. “In a fractured state like Somalia, radio remains the most influential medium,” the BBC noted.4

For radio stations in the United States, the most momentous decision is deciding what kind of music to play— maybe CHR, country, or hot AC. For Radio Mogadishu, simply deciding to play music and broadcast independent news is a far more serious, and life- threatening matter.

F or two decades, Somalia has been without a properly functioning government. The nation of about nine million people on the eastern coast of Africa has been embroiled in a civil war since 1991 in which competing clans and militias have fought in see-saw battles for control of the country. During this time, more than a half million Somalis have died from famine and war. Once a great economic and cultural center, Somalia’s biggest contribution to global culture in recent years has been modern-day seagoing pirates.

A more mod- erate tran- sitional government has tried to take leader- ship of the war-weary nation, but radical Islamist militias, including one with ties to Al Qaeda called Al-Shabaab, have been its biggest adversaries. Al-Shabaab has terrorized African Union peacekeepers and humanitar- ian aid workers with assassinations and suicide bombings, and it has used amputations, stonings, and beatings to enforce its harsh rules against civilians.

Journalists in Somalia have not been immune from the terror. Nearly twenty journalists have been killed there in the

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Over the years, however, more time and attention have been devoted to public television than to public radio. When government funding tightened in the late 1980s and 1990s, televi- sion received the lion’s share. In 1994, a conservative majority in Congress cut financial support and threatened to scrap the CPB, the funding authority for public broadcasting. Consequently, stations became more reliant on private donations and corporate sponsorship. While depend- ing on handouts, especially from big business, public broadcasters steered clear of some contro- versial subjects, especially those that critically examined corporations. (See “Media Literacy and the Critical Process: Comparing Commercial and Noncommercial Radio” above.)

Like commercial stations, nonprofit radio has adopted the format style. Unlike commercial radio, however, the dominant style in public radio is a loose variety format whereby a station may actually switch from jazz, classical music, and alternative rock to news and talk during differ- ent parts of the day. Noncommercial radio remains the place for both tradition and experimen- tation, as well as for programs that do not draw enough listeners for commercial success. (See “Global Village: Radio Mogadishu” on page 132 for more on public radio internationally.)

Comparing Commercial and Noncommercial Radio After the arrival and growth of commercial TV, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) was created in 1967 as the funding agent for public broadcasting—an alternative to commercial TV and radio for educational and cultural programming that could not be easily sustained by commercial broadcasters in search of large general audi- ences. As a result, NPR (National Public Radio) developed to provide national programming to public stations to supple- ment local programming efforts. Today, NPR affiliates get as little as 2 percent of their funding from the government. Most money for public radio comes instead from corporate sponsorships, individual grants, and private donations.

1 DESCRIPTION. Listen to a typical morning or late after- noon hour of a popular local com- mercial talk-news radio station and a typical hour of your local NPR station, from the same time period over a two- to three-day period. Keep a log of what topics are covered and what news stories are reported. For the commer- cial station, log what commercials are carried and how much time in an hour is devoted to ads. For the noncom- mercial station, note how much time is devoted to recognizing the station’s sources of funding support and who the supporters are.

2 ANALYSIS. Look for pat-terns. What kinds of stories are covered? What kinds of topics are discussed? Create a chart to categorize the stories. To cover events and issues, do the stations use actual reporters at the scene? How much time is given to reporting compared to time devoted to opinion? How many sources are cited in each story? What kinds of interview sources are used? Are they expert sources or regular person-on-the-street interviews? How many sources are men and how many are women?

Media Literacy and the Critical Process

3 INTERPRETATION. What do these patterns mean? Is there a balance between reporting and opin- ion? Do you detect any bias, and if so, how did you determine this? Are the stations serving as watchdogs to ensure that democracy’s best interests are be- ing served? What effect, if any, do you think the advertisers/supporters have on the programming? What arguments might you make about commercial and noncommercial radio based on your findings?

4 EVALUATION. Which station seems to be doing a better job serving its local audience? Why? Do you buy the 1930s argument that noncom-

mercial stations serve narrow, special interests while commercial stations serve capitalism and the public interest? Why or why not? From which station did you learn the most, and which station did you find most entertaining? Explain. What did you like and dislike about each station?

5 ENGAGEMENT. Join your college radio station. Talk to the station manager about the goals for a typical hour of programming and what audience they are trying to reach. Finally, pitch program or topic ideas that would improve your college station’s programming.

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New Radio Technologies Offer More Stations Over the past decade or so, two alternative radio technologies have helped to expand radio be- yond its traditional AM and FM bands and bring more diverse sounds to listeners: satellite and HD (digital) radio.

Satellite Radio A series of satellites launched to cover the continental United States created a subscription national satellite radio service. Two companies, XM and Sirius, completed their national introduction by 2002 and merged into a single provider in 2008. The merger was precipitated by their struggles to make a profit after building competing satellite systems and battling for listeners. Together, they offer more than 180 digital music, news, and talk channels to the continental United States via sat- ellite, with monthly prices starting at $12.95 and satellite radio receivers costing from $30 to $300.

Programming includes a range of music channels, from rock to reggae, to Spanish Top 40 and opera, as well as channels dedicated to NASCAR, NPR, cooking, and comedy. Another fea- ture of satellite radio’s programming is popular personalities who host their own shows or have their own channels, including Howard Stern, Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, and Bob Dylan. U.S. automakers (investors in the satellite radio companies) now equip most new cars with a satellite band, in addition to AM and FM, in order to promote further adoption of satellite radio.

However, satellite radio continues to have financial problems even after the merger of XM and Sirius. In an attempt to further expand their market, Sirius XM began offering free apps for the iPhone, Blackberry, and Android in 2009 so listeners can access satellite radio via their smartphones. They also began offering limited service to other cell phone carriers.

HD Radio Available to the public since 2004, HD radio is a digital technology that enables AM and FM radio broadcasters to multicast two to three additional compressed digital signals within their tradi- tional analog frequency. For example, KNOW, a public radio station at 91.1 FM in Minneapolis–St. Paul, runs its National Public Radio news/talk/information format on 91.1 HD1, Radio Heartland (acoustic and Americana music) on 91.1 HD2, and the BBC News service on 91.1 HD3. About two thousand radio stations now broadcast in HD. To tune in, listeners need a radio with the HD band, which brings in CD-quality digital signals. Digital HD radio also provides program data, like artist name and song title, and enables listeners to tag songs for playlists that can later be downloaded to an iPod and purchased on iTunes. But the roll-out of HD has been slow. By 2010, one national survey noted that only 31 percent of people had heard or read anything recently about HD radio.16

Radio and Convergence Like every other mass medium, radio is moving into the future by converging with the Internet. Interestingly, this convergence is taking radio back to its roots in some aspects. Internet radio allows for much more variety in radio, which is reminiscent of radio’s earliest years when nearly any individual or group with some technical skill could start a radio station. Moreover, podcasts bring back content like storytelling, instructional programs, and local topics of interest that have largely been missing in corporate radio. And portable listening devices like the iPod and radio apps for the iPad and smartphones harken back to the compact portability that first came with the popularization of transistor radios in the 1950s.

Internet Radio Internet radio emerged in the 1990s with the popularity of the Web. Internet radio stations come in two types. The first involves an existing AM, FM, satellite, or HD station “streaming” a

“[Pandora’s iPhone app has] changed the perception people have of what Internet radio is, from computer- radio to radio, because you can take the iPhone and just plug it into your car, or take it to the gym.”

TIM WESTERGREN, PANDORA FOUNDER, WIRED.COM, 2010

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simulcast version of its on-air signal over the Web. According to the Arbitron radio rating service, more than 6,400 radio stations stream their programming over the Web today.17 The second kind of online radio station is one that has been created exclusively for the Internet. Pandora, Yahoo! Music, AOL Radio, Last.fm, and Slacker are some of the leading Internet radio station services. In fact, services like Pandora allow users to have more control over their listening experience and the selections that are played. Listeners can create individualized stations based on a specific artist or song that they request. Pandora also enables users to share their musical choices on Facebook. Internet radio is clearly in sync with younger radio listeners: a majority of younger consumers, ages twelve to thirty-four, select the Internet (52 percent) over radio (32 percent) as the medium to which they turn first to learn about music.18

Beginning in 2002, a Copyright Royalty Board established by the Library of Congress began to assess royalty fees for streaming copyrighted songs over the Internet based on a percentage of each station’s revenue. In 2007, the board proposed to change the royalty fees to a per-song basis, which would increase station payments to the recording industry anywhere from 300 to 1,200 percent. Although the recording industry was pleased with the plan, Webcasters—who have millions of online listeners each week—claimed the higher rates threatened their financial viability.19 In 2009, Congress passed the Webcaster Settlement Act, which was considered a lifeline for Internet radio. The act enabled Internet stations to negotiate royalty fees directly with the music industry, at rates presumably more reasonable than what the Copyright Royalty Board had proposed.

Podcasting and Portable Listening Developed in 2004, podcasting (the term marries iPod and broadcasting) refers to the prac- tice of making audio files available on the Internet so listeners can download them onto their computers and transfer them to portable MP3 players or listen to the files on the computer. This popular distribution method quickly became mainstream, as mass media companies created commercial podcasts to promote and extend existing content, such as news and reality TV, while independent producers kept pace with their own podcasts on niche topics like knitting, fly fishing, and learning Russian.

Podcasts have led the way for people to listen to radio on mobile devices like the iPod and Microsoft’s Zune. Satellite radio, Internet-only stations like Pandora and Slacker, sites that stream traditional broadcast radio like the iheartradio.com, and public radio like NPR all offer apps for smartphones and touchscreen devices like the iPad, which has also led to a resurgence in portable listening. Traditional broadcast radio stations are becoming increasingly mindful that they need to reach younger listeners on the Internet, and that Internet radio is no longer tethered to a computer.

ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR Internet radio sites, Pandora.com, allows you to tailor-make radio stations based on a favorite artist or song. Listeners have an enormous amount of autonomy–you can like or dislike a song, move it to another station, ask why a certain song was selected, and even ban a song from being played on your stations for a month.

The Economics of Broadcast Radio

Radio continues to be one of the most-used mass media, reaching 93 percent of American teenagers and adults every week.20 Because of radio’s broad reach, the airwaves are very desir- able real estate for advertisers, who want to reach people in and out of their homes; for record

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labels, who want their songs played; and for radio station owners, who want to create large radio groups to dominate multiple markets.

Local and National Advertising About 8 percent of all U.S. spending on media advertising goes to radio stations. Like newspa- pers, radio generates its largest profits by selling local and regional ads. Thirty-second radio spot ads range from $1,500 in large markets to just a few dollars in the smallest markets. Today, gross advertising receipts for radio are more than $16 billion (about three-quarters of the rev- enues from local ad sales, with the remainder in national spot, network, and digital radio sales), up from about $12.4 billion in 1996. Although industry revenue has dropped from a peak of $21.7 billion in 2006, the number of stations keeps growing, now totaling about 14,500 stations (almost 4,800 AM stations, about 6,500 FM commercial stations, and about 3,200 FM educa- tional stations).21 Unlike television, where nearly 40 percent of a station’s expenses goes to buy syndicated programs, local radio stations get much of their content free from the recording industry. Therefore, only about 20 percent of a typical radio station’s budget goes to cover pro- gramming costs. But that free music content was in doubt by 2010, as the music industry—which already charges royalties for Internet radio stations—proposed charging radio broadcast perfor- mance royalty fees for playing music on the air. The radio industry strongly opposed any new royalty charges, fearing that the increased fees would force smaller radio stations off the air.

When radio stations want to purchase programming, they often turn to national network radio, which generates more than $1 billion in ad sales annually by offering dozens of special- ized services. For example, Westwood One, the nation’s largest radio network service, man- aged by CBS Radio, syndicates more than 150 programs, including regular news features (e.g., CBS Radio News, CNN Radio News), entertainment programs (e.g., Country Countdown USA, the Billy Bush Show), talk shows (e.g., the Dennis Miller Show, Loveline), and complete twenty- four-hour formats (e.g., adult rock and roll, bright adult contemporary, hot country, main- stream country, and CNN Headline News). More than sixty companies offer national program and format services, typically providing local stations with programming in exchange for time slots for national ads. The most successful radio network programs are the shows broadcast by affiliates in the Top 20 markets, which offer advertisers half of the country’s radio audience.

Manipulating Playlists with Payola Radio’s impact on music industry profits—radio airplay can help to popularize recordings—has required ongoing government oversight to expose illegal playlist manipulation. Payola, the practice by which record promoters pay deejays to play particular records, was rampant during

1 Clear Channel Communications (Top Property: WLTW-FM, New York) $2,358

2 CBS Corp. (KROQ-FM, Los Angeles) 1,270

3 Citadel Broadcasting Corp. (WPLJ-FM, New York) 595

4 Cumulus Media (KNBR-AM, San Francisco) 412

5 Entercom Communications Corp. (WEEI-AM, Boston) 384

6 Cox Enterprises (WSB-AM, Atlanta) 362

7 Univision Communications (KLVE-FM, Los Angeles) 324

8 Radio One (WKYS-FM, Washington, D.C.) 226

9 Bonneville International (KIRO-AM, Seattle) 216

10 Emmis Communications (WKQX, Chicago) 182

Rank Company Radio Net Revenue*

TABLE 4.3 TOP RADIO INDUSTRY COMPANIES, 2009 *Dollars in millions. Source: Mark Fratrik, BIA/Kelsey Digital Strategies for Broadcast- ing, May 10, 2010. Note: Citadel’s rank is expected to fall after it declared bankruptcy in late 2009.

the 1950s as record companies sought to guarantee record sales (see Chapter 3). In response, management took control of programming, arguing that if individual deejays had less impact on which records would be played, the deejays would be less susceptible to bribery.

Despite congressional hearings and new regulations, payola persisted. Record promoters showered their favors on a few influential, high-profile deejays, whose backing could make or break a record nationally, or on key program managers in charge of Top 40 formats in large urban markets. Although a 1984 congressional hearing determined that there was “no credible evidence” of payola, NBC News broke a story in 1986 about independent promoters who had alleged ties to organized crime. A subsequent investigation led major recording companies to break most of their ties with independent promoters. Prominent record labels had been paying such promoters up to $80 million per year to help records become hits.

Recently, there has been increased enforcement of payola laws. In 2005, two major labels— Sony-BMG and Warner Music—paid $10 million and $5 million, respectively, to settle payola cases in New York State, where label executives were discovered bribing radio station program- mers to play particular songs. A year later in New York State, Universal Music Group paid $12 million to settle payola charges, which included allegations of bribing radio program direc- tors with baseball tickets, hotel rooms, and laptop computers. And in 2007, four of the largest broadcasting companies—CBS Radio, Clear Channel, Citadel, and Entercom—agreed to pay $12.5 million to settle an FCC payola investigation. The companies also agreed to an unprecedented “independent music content commitment,” which requires them to provide 8,400 half-hour blocks of airtime to play music from independent record labels.

Radio Ownership: From Diversity to Consolidation The Telecommunications Act of 1996 substantially changed the rules concerning ownership of the public airwaves because the FCC eliminated most ownership restrictions on radio. As a result, 2,100 stations and $15 billion changed hands that year alone. From 1995 to 2005, the number of radio station owners declined by one-third, from 6,600 to about 4,400.22

Once upon a time, the FCC tried to encourage diversity in broadcast ownership. From the 1950s through the 1980s, a media company could not own more than seven AM, seven FM, and seven TV stations nationally, and only one radio station per market. Just prior to the 1996 act, the ownership rules were relaxed to allow any single person or company to own up to twenty AM, twenty FM, and twelve TV stations nationwide, but only two in the same market.

The 1996 act allows individuals and companies to acquire as many radio stations as they want, with relaxed restrictions on the number of stations a single broadcaster may own in the same city: The larger the market or area, the more stations a company may own within that market. For example, in areas where forty-five or more stations are available to listeners, a broadcaster may own up to eight stations, but not more than five of one type (AM or FM). In areas with fourteen or fewer stations, a broadcaster may own up to five stations (three of any one type). In very small markets with a handful of stations, a broadcast company may not own more than half the stations.

With few exceptions, for the past two decades the FCC has embraced the consolidation schemes pushed by the powerful National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) lobbyists in Wash- ington, D.C., under which fewer and fewer owners control more and more of the airwaves.

The consequences of the 1996 Telecommunications Act and other deregulation have been significant. Consider the cases of Clear Channel Communications and CBS Radio, which are the two largest radio chain owners in terms of total revenue (see Table 4.3 on page 136). Clear Channel Communications was formed in 1972 with one San Antonio station. In 1998, it swal- lowed up Jacor Communications, the fifth-largest radio chain, and became the nation’s second- largest group, with 454 stations in 101 cities. In 1999, Clear Channel gobbled up another growing

WHAT CLEAR CHANNEL OWNS Consider how Clear Channel connects to your life; then turn the page for the bigger picture.

RADIO BROADCASTING (U.S.)

• 894 radio stations • Premiere Radio Network

(syndicates 90 radio programs, including The Glenn Beck Program, Keep Hope Alive with Reverend Jesse Jackson, On Air with Ryan Seacrest, and Fox Sports Radio)

• iheartradio.com

INTERNATIONAL RADIO • Clear Channel International

Radio (Joint Partnerships) –Australian Radio Network –The Radio Network (New

Zealand)

ADVERTISING • Clear Channel Outdoor

Advertising (billboards, airports, malls, taxis) –North American Division –International Division

MEDIA REPRESENTATION • Katz Media Group

SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS

• Clear Channel Satellite

INFORMATION SERVICES • Clear Channel Total Traffic

Network • Clear Channel

Communications News Networks

MARKETING/VIDEO PRODUCTION

• Twelve Creative

BROADCAST SOFTWARE • RCS Sound Software

RADIO RESEARCH AND CONSULTATION

• Broadcast Architecture

TRADE INDUSTRY PUBLICATIONS

• InsideRadio.com • TheRadioJournal.com • The Radio Book

Turn page for more

conglomerate, AMFM (formerly Chancellor Media Corporation), which had 463 stations and an estimated $1.6 billion in revenue. The deal broadened Clear Channel’s operation to 874 sta- tions in 187 U.S. markets, providing access to more than 110 million listeners. By 2010, Clear Channel had shed some of the 1,205 stations it owned at its peak in 2005. Today, it owns nearly 900 radio stations and about one million billboard and outdoor displays in the United States and around the world, and an interest in about 140 stations internationally. Clear Channel also distributes many of the leading syndicated programs, including The Rush Limbaugh Show, The Jim Rome Show, On Air with Ryan Seacrest, Delilah, and The Bob & Tom Show. (See “What Clear Channel Owns” on page 137.)

CBS Radio, formerly Infinity Broadcasting, was created when media giant Viacom split into two companies in late 2005. CBS Radio is the second leading radio conglomerate in terms of revenue, with 130 stations. It is also one of the leading outdoor advertising companies in the nation. CBS streams all of its stations on the Internet through AOL Radio and Yahoo! Music Radio. It also owns Last.fm, a popular music streaming site.

CBS Radio also operates the Westwood One radio network, the nation’s leading program- ming and radio news syndicator. Combined, Clear Channel and CBS own roughly 1,000 radio stations (about 7 percent of all commercial U.S. stations), dominate the fifty largest markets in the United States, and control about one-quarter of the entire radio industry’s $16 billion revenue. Competing major radio groups that have grown in the recent radio industry consolida- tions include Cox, Entercom, Cumulus, Citadel, and Radio One. As a result of the consolidations permitted by deregulation, in most American cities just two corporations dominate the radio market. But as radio corporations accumulated debt to buy more stations, and as the economic recession hit in 2008, many radio groups fell on hard times. Citadel declared bankruptcy in 2009, and Clear Channel has struggled to repay its debts.

A smaller but perhaps the most dominant radio conglomerate in a single format area is Univision. With a $3 billion takeover of Hispanic Broadcasting in 2003, Univision is the top Spanish-language radio broadcaster in the United States. The company is also the largest Spanish-language television broadcaster in the United States (see Chapter 5), as well as being the owner of the top two Spanish-language cable networks (Galavisión and Telefutura) and Univision Online, the most popular Spanish-language Web site in the United States.

Alternative Voices As large corporations gained control of America’s radio airwaves, activists in hundreds of com- munities across the United States in the 1990s protested by starting up their own noncommer- cial “pirate” radio stations capable of broadcasting over a few miles with low-power FM signals of 1 to 10 watts. The NAB and other industry groups pressed to have the pirate broadcasters closed down, citing their illegality and their potential to create interference with existing sta- tions. Between 1995 and 2000, more than five hundred illegal micropower radio stations were shut down. Still, an estimated one hundred to one thousand pirate stations are in operation in the United States, in both large urban areas and small rural towns.

The major complaint of pirate radio station operators was that the FCC had long ago ceased licensing low-power community radio stations. In 2000, the FCC, responding to tens of thou- sands of inquiries about the development of a new local radio broadcasting service, approved a new noncommercial low-power FM (LPFM) class of 10- and 100-watt stations in order to give voice to local groups lacking access to the public airwaves. LPFM station licensees included mostly religious groups but also high schools, colleges and universities, Native American tribes, labor groups, and museums.

The technical plans for LPFM located the stations in unused frequencies on the FM dial. Still, the NAB and National Public Radio fought to delay and limit the number of LPFM stations,

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Clear Channel’s radio stations and outdoor advertising combine to reach the ears and eyes of mobile consumers.

• Revenue: Clear Channel’s 2009 revenue was $5.55 billion, down from $6.68 billion in 2008. Fully 50% comes from broadcasting. The rest comes from outdoor advertising and national media sales.

• Major Markets: Clear Channel has 149 stations in the top 25 markets. They reach more than 110 million people every week or about one-third of the U.S. population.

• Outdoor Advertising: Clear Channel has outdoor advertising operations in 49 of the top 50 U.S. markets, including the giant video billboards in Times Square and the Las Vegas strip.

• National Programming: Premiere Radio Network produces, distributes, or represents approximately 90 syndicated radio programs. Syndicated program hosts include Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Elvis Duran, and Steve Harvey.

• Internet: Clear Channel delivers more than 750 of its stations, plus custom channels, through its Internet radio portal, iheartradio.com.

• Global Footprint: Clear Channel has joint ventures with over 140 radio stations in Australia and New Zealand, with more than 5.5 million listeners weekly.1

KFI-AM One of Clear Channel’s major assets is KFI-AM, the dominant talk radio station in Los Angeles.

CHAPTER 4 ○ RADIO ��139

LOW-POWER FM RADIO To help communities or organizations set up LPFM stations, some nonprofit groups like the Prometheus Radio Project provide support in obtaining government licenses as well as actually constructing stations. For construction endeavors known as “barn raisings,” the Prometheus project will send volunteers “to raise the antenna mast, build the studio, and flip on the station switch.” Shown above is the barn raising for station WRFU 104.5 FM in Urbana, Illinois.

arguing that such stations would cause interference with existing full-power FM stations. Then FCC chairman William E. Kennard, who fostered the LPFM initiative, responded: “This is about the haves—the broadcast industry—trying to prevent many have-nots—small community and educational organizations—from having just a little piece of the pie. Just a little piece of the airwaves which belong to all of the people.”23 By 2010, about 870 LPFM stations were broadcasting, and another 52 organizations had gained permission to build LPFM stations. A major advocate of LPFM stations is the Prometheus Radio Project, a nonprofit formed by radio activists in 1998. Prometheus has helped to educate community organizations about low-power radio and has sponsored at least a dozen “barn raisings” to build community stations in places like Hudson, New York; Opelousas, Louisiana; Woodburn, Oregon; and Greenville, South Carolina.

Radio and the Democracy of the Airwaves

As radio was the first national electronic mass medium, its influence in the formation of Ameri- can culture cannot be overestimated. Radio has given us soap operas, situation comedies, and broadcast news; it helped to popularize rock and roll, car culture, and the politics of talk radio. Yet, for all of its national influence, broadcast radio is still a supremely local medium. For de- cades, listeners have tuned in to hear the familiar voices of their community’s deejays and talk- show hosts and hear the regional flavor of popular music over airwaves that the public owns.

The early debates over radio gave us one of the most important and enduring ideas in com- munication policy: a requirement to operate in the “public interest, convenience, or necessity.” But the broadcasting industry has long been at odds with this policy, arguing that radio cor- porations invest heavily in technology and should be able to have more control over the radio frequencies on which they operate, and moreover own as many stations as they want. Deregu- lation in the past few decades has moved closer to that corporate vision, as nearly every radio market in the nation is dominated by a few owners, and those owners are required to renew their broadcasting licenses only every eight years.

This trend in ownership has moved radio away from its localism, as radio groups often man- age hundreds of stations from afar. Given broadcasters’ reluctance to publicly raise questions about their own economic arrangements, public debate regarding radio as a natural resource has remained minuscule. As citizens look to the future, a big question remains to be answered: With a few large broadcast companies now permitted to dominate radio ownership nationwide, how much is consolidation of power restricting the number and kinds of voices permitted to speak over public airwaves? To ensure that mass media industries continue to serve democracy and local communities, the public needs to play a role in developing the answer to this question.

140��SOUNDS AND IMAGES

telegraph, 109 Morse code, 109 electromagnetic waves, 110 radio waves, 110 wireless telegraphy, 111 wireless telephony, 113 broadcasting, 114 narrowcasting, 114 Radio Act of 1912, 114 Radio Corporation of

America (RCA), 115 network, 117 option time, 119 Radio Act of 1927, 120 Federal Radio Commission (FRC), 120

Communications Act of 1934, 120 Federal Communications Commission

(FCC), 120 transistors, 124 FM, 124 AM, 125 format radio, 126 rotation, 126 Top 40 format, 126 progressive rock, 128 album-oriented rock (AOR), 128 drive time, 128 news/talk/information, 129 adult contemporary (AC), 129 contemporary hit radio (CHR), 130

country, 130 urban contemporary, 130 Pacifica Foundation, 131 National Public Radio (NPR), 131 Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), 131 Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, 131 Corporation for Public

Broadcasting (CPB), 131 satellite radio, 134 HD radio, 134 Internet radio, 134 podcasting, 135 payola, 136 Telecommunications Act of 1996, 137 low- power FM (LPFM), 138

COMMON THREADS

In radio’s novelty stage, several inventors transcended the wires of the telegraph and telephone to solve the problem of wireless communication. In the entrepreneurial stage, inventors tested ship-to-shore radio, while others devel- oped person-to-person toll radio transmissions and other schemes to make money from wireless communication. Fi- nally, when radio stations began broadcasting to the general public (who bought radio receivers for their homes), radio became a mass medium.

As the first electronic mass medium, radio set the pat- tern for an ongoing battle between wired and wireless tech- nologies. For example, television brought images to wireless broadcasting. Then, cable television’s wires brought televi- sion signals to places where receiving antennas didn’t work. Satellite television (wireless from outer space) followed as an

One of the Common Threads discussed in Chapter 1 is about the development of the mass media. Like other mass media, radio evolved in three stages. But it also influenced an important dichotomy in mass media technology: wired versus wireless.

KEY TERMS The definitions for the terms listed below can be found in the glossary at the end of the book. The page numbers listed with the terms indicate where the term is highlighted in the chapter.

innovation to bring TV where cable didn’t exist. Now, broad- cast, cable, and satellite all compete against one another.

Similarly, think of how cell phones have eliminated mil- lions of traditional phone, or land, lines. The Internet, like the telephone, also began with wires, but Wi-Fi and home wireless systems are eliminating those wires, too. And radio? Most listeners get traditional local (wireless) radio broadcast sig- nals, but now listeners may use a wired Internet connection to stream Internet radio or download Webcasts and podcasts.

Both wired and wireless technology have advantages and disadvantages. Do we want the stability but the teth- ers of a wired connection? Or do we want the freedom and occasional instability (“Can you hear me now?”) of wireless media? Can radio’s development help us understand wired versus wireless battles in other media?

CHAPTER REVIEW

CHAPTER 4 ○ RADIO��141

For review quizzes, chapter summaries, links to media-related Web sites, and more, go to bedfordstmartins.com/mediaculture.

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Why was the development of the telegraph important in media history? What were some of the disadvantages of telegraph technology?

2. How is the concept of the wireless different from that of radio?

3. What was Guglielmo Marconi’s role in the development of the wireless?

4. What were Lee De Forest’s contributions to radio? 5. Why were there so many patent disputes in the develop-

ment of radio? 6. Why was the RCA monopoly formed? 7. How did broadcasting, unlike print media, come to be

federally regulated? The Evolution of Radio

8. What was AT&T’s role in the early days of radio? 9. How did the radio networks develop? What were the

contributions of David Sarnoff and William Paley to network radio?

10. Why did the government-sanctioned RCA monopoly end? 11. What is the significance of the Radio Act of 1927 and

the Federal Communications Act of 1934? Radio Reinvents Itself

12. How did radio adapt to the arrival of television? 13. What was Edwin Armstrong’s role in the advancement

of radio technology? Why did RCA hamper Armstrong’s work?

1. Count the number and types of radio stations in your area today. What formats do they use? Do a little re- search, and find out who are the owners of the stations in your market. How much diversity is there among the highest-rated stations?

2. If you could own and manage a commercial radio station, what format would you choose, and why?

3. If you ran a noncommercial radio station in your area, what services would you provide that are not being met by commercial format radio?

QUESTIONING THE MEDIA 4. How might radio be used to improve social and political

discussions in the United States? 5. If you were the head of a large radio group, what argu-

ments would you make in response to charges that your company has limited the number of voices in the local media?

14. How did music on radio change in the 1950s? 15. What is format radio, and why was it important to the

survival of radio? The Sounds of Commercial Radio

16. Why are there so many radio formats today? 17. Why did Top 40 radio diminish as a format in the 1980s

and 1990s? 18. What is the state of nonprofit radio today? 19. How does the Internet affect the business of standard

broadcast radio? The Economics of Broadcast Radio

20. What are the current ownership rules governing Ameri- can radio?

21. What has been the main effect of the Telecommunica- tions Act of 1996 on radio station ownership?

22. Why did the FCC create a new class of low-power FM stations?

23. Why did existing full-power radio broadcasters seek to delay and limit the emergence of low-power FM stations?

Radio and the Democracy of the Airwaves

24. Throughout the history of radio, why did the government encourage monopoly or oligopoly ownership of radio broadcasting?

25. What is the relevance of localism to debates about own- ership in radio?

Early Technology and the Development of Radio