Origins of
Radio
Broadcasting
By 1888, the
German physicist Heinrich Hertz had demonstrated
The existence of radio waves in the laboratory.
Scientific discoveries together with the work of Mr. Hertz
and the British physicist James
Maxwell attracted the attention of
an Italian teenager Guglielmo
Marconi. Mr. Marconi later became a physicist and engineer and
in 1894 he sent morse code signals up to one mile through the air. He tried to sell
his ideas to the Italian Ministry of Post and Telegraph, but they were rejected as too impractical. So
Mr. Marconi traveled to England, where he found a
group of investors who were highly impressed. In
1897 Marconi established a well financed company
and began mass producing equipment to send telegraph signals through the airs without wires--hence
the term wireless communication. Wireless telegraphs were clearly very useful with communicating
with ships at sea and now we had a less limiting way
than land wires on poles to send information over
great distances. On Christmas eve 1906, Canadian-
Other work during this same time period began to
focus on the electromagnetic spectrum, which is a
measurement of all forms of energy--including radio,
visible light, x-rays and gamma rays. From the
above illustration you can see that the visible light
(what our eyes can see) portion of the spectrum is
very narrow. There is a wide range of energy that
exists that we can’t see, but is there and can be
measured by scientific instruments and used for scientific purposes. Microwaves are used to cook hot
dogs and popcorn or reheat food, and they are also
used to carry radio signals to and from satellites orbiting the earth.
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American engineer Reginald A. Fessenden sent the
first voice transmission over the radio waves.
Westinghouse Electric asked him to build a more
powerful transmitter in time to announce the outcome of the 1920 presidential election. Mr. Conrad
did so, and in November 1920, station KDKA in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania made the first commercial
broadcast to over 1000 listeners. We consider this
the first commercial broadcast because corporate
money was used to pay for the building of a more
powerful transmitter to demonstrate the ability to
broadcast to a mass audience.
There are many others who made significant contributions to the development of
radio--including
Thomas A. Edison
and Nikola Tesla.
While it is true
that the United
States Supreme
Court credited
Tesla with being
the inventor of radio in 1943, and
dozens of other
scientists made
many contibutions
to the development
of radio, it is Marconi who recieves the most credit
for developing radio into the widespread use and
commercialization that we know today.
Crystal radio recievers
were easy to build and
cheaply massed produced,
so radio expanded rapidly.
To stimulate the sale of radio sets, equipment makers
provided transmission facilities. Singers, orchestras, and comedians volunteered their services for the
free publicity, but it still wasn’t clear what would
cover the costs of program production and transmission. Some groups tried to collect private donations
from listeners while others urged either government
or private foundation support of radio as a service to
the public. That’s why today we have college and
public radio stations which rely on government and
private grants. Radio entered a profitable commercial era in 1922 when the first sponsor paid to
have their advertisement broadcast over the airwaves. it would only be a matter of time before advertising became the primary source of revenue for
radio production, either through the airing of “spots”
(thirty or sixty second announcements selling a
product) or through the outright sponsoring of an
entire show, such as The General Electric Mystery
Theater.
The idea of radio broadcasting to
a mass audience was first
dreamed
up by an executive of the
American Marconi company, David Sarnoff. Mr.
Sarnoff wanted to make
radio available to all
households where every
family could buy a radio
set and listen to music,
programs, and lectures. But his superiors doubted
his ideas and didn’t develop this concept. In 1920,
an employee of Westinghouse Electric Corporation
named Frank Conrad attracted a lot of attention
when a local newspaper highlighted his amateur radio broadcasts. Other hobbyists had crystal radio
sets and listened to Conrad and his family announce
and play musical records--the world’s first DJ’s!
Conrad’s little broadcasts became so popular that
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News
the Worlds”. The story
was presented as if it were
an actual news event of
Martians landing in New
Jersey and attacking the innocent
population. Although the actors periodically announced that this was not really happening and was
being presented as a drama, people who tuned in late
or otherwise missed the announcement supposedly
panicked and ran into the streets screaming.
Whether or not there really was mass hysteria is subject to debate today--but the event was historically
significant. It catapulted Orson Welles to fame (he
would later become a film actor and director, noted
for his masterpiece works “Citizen Kane” and “The
Reporting
By the
1930’s radio
had become
hugely popular
throughout the
United States
and the world. It
rivaled newspapers in news coverage and in many
ways surpassed it with the ability to broadcast live as
the events unfolded. A notable live broadcast on
May 6, 1937 chronicled the horrible disaster of the
German Zepplin Hidenburg which burst into flames
while docking at the Lakehurst, New Jersey Naval
Air Station. Because the airship was filled with hydrogen gas a spark (some say from lightning or static
electricity) ignited the gas in the ship and it exploded
and burned in less than sixty seconds. Newsreel
photographers and radio announcers were on hand to
document the landing and were instead faced with a
horrible tragedy. You can hear the live eyewitness
account of the Hindenberg disaster as reported by
Herbert Morrison of radio station WLS, Chicago, by
visting this website:
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/vohind.htm
Thin Man” among others.
Can you think of any
other radio personalities
who have either had their
careers advanced or ruined through controversy?
Radio
For
Quiz Review
you should
know:
Entertainment
During the Great Depression
of the 1930’s there were plenty of programs that kept
the masses entertained. Mystery/Adventure shows
such as “The Green Hornet”, comedies such as
“Amos and Andy”, music, drama and plays all filled
the airwaves. Families sat around the radio set much
like they sit around a TV or watch a DVD today.
The significance of the
electromagnetic spectrum
The contributions of
Tesla and Marconi to
the science of radio
The origins of public
and private broadcasting
The significant differences between radio news
and print news, using The Hindenburg Disaster as
an example
Why the “War of the Worlds” broadcast by Orson Welles was a significant event
On Halloween eve of 1938, Orson Welles created a
stir with his reading of the H.G. Wells story “War of
Who the first American DJ’s were
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sources for this article/for further information:
War of The Worlds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_W
orlds_(radio)
Hindenberg Disaster:
http://www.otr.com/hindenburg.shtml
image:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hindenburg_b
urning.jpg
Nikola Tesla: (information and image)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla
G. Marconi:
information on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_Marconi
images:
http://homepages.tesco.net/~martin.batesuk/ma
rconi/1896_Marconi..htm
http://www.navis.gr/men/images/marconi.jpg
The elecromagnetic spectrum:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spe
ctrum
image:
http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/topicr
eview/bp/ch6/graphics/spectrum.gif
image, family listening to the radio:
http://www.pbs.org/jazz/exchange/exchange_ra
dio.htm
early radio set (image)
http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/96
7/55017398.JPG
broadcast tower image:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07010/752460-80.stm
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