Press Communications history

On the West Coast of the United States, for example, Charles (“Doc”) Herrold began operating a wireless transmitter in conjunction with his radio school in San Jose, California, about 1908.

Beginning in 1912, Edwin Armstrong studied the workings of the Audion and discovered the principle of regeneration.

The University of Wisconsin’s WHA began as a physics department transmitter, but as early as 1917 it was sending wireless telegraph agricultural market reports by Morse Code to Wisconsin farmers.

One of the world’s first scheduled radio broadcast services (known as PCGG) began in Rotterdam, Netherlands, on November 6, 1919.

After the war, renewed interest in radio broadcasts grew out of experimenters’ efforts, though such broadcasts were neither officially authorized nor licensed by government agencies, as would become the practice in most countries by the late 1920s.

The first Mexican radio station aired in the capital city in 1921, though many in the country had first heard broadcasts from Cuba or Puerto Rico.

Concerns about interference with military wireless transmissions, however, led to a shutdown until 1922, when government-authorized stations appeared, including the first London-based outlet.

At Hoover’s behest, most frequencies between 550 kHz and 1,350 kHz were turned over for broadcast use in May 1923.

Antitrust concerns led AT&T to sell its radio stations in 1926 to RCA, which used the stations to form the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). The premiere broadcast of the network took place on November 15, 1926, when NBC aired a four-hour program from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York.

By the beginning of 1927, NBC had two networks, the Red and the Blue, which totaled 25 stations; more would join.

Detroit’s WXYZ became a major force in 1933 with popular shows such as The Lone Ranger.

In 1934 WXYZ joined with the powerful 50,000-watt stations WLW in Cincinnati, WOR in New York, and WGN in Chicago to form the Quality Group, an association that was soon rechristened the Mutual Broadcasting System.

He built an experimental FM station in Alpine, New Jersey, in 1939, supplied the financing to have FM receivers built, and petitioned the FCC to create FM stations.

Although the service was authorized in 1940, fewer than 400,000 receivers were in the hands of the public by the start of World War II. In contrast, twenty-nine million households could listen to AM radio at that point.

In the late 1930s the Federal Communications Commission (created by the Communications Act of 1934) investigated the potential for a monopoly on broadcasting, and in 1941 it recommended that no single company own more than one network. As a result, NBC decided to sell its Blue network in 1943.

By 1944 it had been renamed the American Broadcasting Company (ABC).

About 1945 the appearance of television began to transform radio’s content and role.

White, Llewellyn. (1947). The American Radio: A Report on the Broadcasting Industry in the United States from The Commission on Freedom of the Press.

New initiatives, 1960–80FM growthPirates and public-service radioRadio in developing markets

By 1971, nearly half of all radios sold included FM tuners.

National FM listener share passed the AM listener share in the fall of 1978; 50.698 percent of the listeners were tuning to FM stations.

MacFarland, David T. (1979). The Development of the Top 40 Radio Format.

Duncan, James H., ed. (1987). American Radio: Spring 1987.

With the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, broadcasters were allowed to own up to eight commercial stations in large markets and as many stations nationwide as they are able to purchase.

By the year 2000, approximately 85 percent of all radio listeners were tuning to FM stations.

November 2, 2020, marks the 100th anniversary of what is widely recognized as the first commercial radio broadcast when Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company in Pittsburgh, under the call sign KDKA, broadcast the live returns of the Harding-Cox presidential election.