Juan Monroy — Electronic Media: Class 3, Roots of Broadcasting

1 Cultural Background
- 1.1 Progressive Era
  - embraced radio as a communications device
  - NAACP
  - Women’s Suffrage
- 1.2 Industrialization and Urbanization
- 1.3 Mass Culture
2 Electromagnetic Waves
- 2.1 invisible electronic impulses similar to visible light
- 2.2 discovered by James Maxwell in the 1850–60s
- 2.3 radio waves could be harnessed
  - transmission (Tx)
  - reception (Rx)
- 2.4 Heinrich Hertz: first documented Tx & Rx of radio wave, 1880s
3 Wireless Telegraphy
- 3.1 Guglielmo Marconi
  - ship-to-shore communication
  - patented wireless telegraphy (1896)
  - Marconi Wireless Telegraphy Company (1897)
    - British naval and commercial ships
  - American Marconi (1899)
  - wireless transmission across English Channel (1899)
  - wireless transmission across Atlantic Ocean (1901)
4 Wireless Telephony
- 4.1 Lee deForest
  - Wireless Telephone Company (1902)
  - based on the Fleming Tube (based on the electric light bulb)
  - audion triode vacuum tube (1907)
  - detected and amplified radio signals
- 4.2 Reginald Fesseden
  - first voice transmission on Christmas Eve 1906
- 4.3 Edwin H. Armstrong
  - regeneration
  - amplification using deForest’s audion
  - developed during World War I
- 4.4 broadcasting
  - transmission of radio waves to a broad public audience
5 amateur radio operators
- 5.1 crystal sets
- 5.2 pre-World War I
- 5.3 Hugo Gernsback, Radio League of America
- 5.4 Hiram Percy Maxim American Radio Relay League (ARRL)
- 5.5 pushed aside by corporate interests
6 “Great Man” version of history
- 6.1 Empire of the Air
- 6.2 Characters
  - Guglielmo Marconi
  - Lee DeForest
  - David Sarnoff
  - Edwin Armstrong
- 6.3 Driven men
- 6.4 “One would succeed on his own terms”
7 Radio Corporation of America
- 7.1 after World War I, debates to nationalize radio
- 7.2 March 1919: General Electric bought Marconi’s American division
- 7.3 October 1919: General Electric formed RCA subdivision
- 7.4 patent pool
  - General Electric (founding member)
  - American Marconi (acquired 1919)
  - Westinghouse (joined 1920)
  - American Telephone and Telegraph (joined 1920)
  - United Fruit (minor partner 1921)
- 7.5 delegated business
  - AT&T: radio transmitters and radio telephony
  - GE & Westinghouse: radio receivers
8 Early Radio Stations
- 8.1 amateurs
- 8.2 small businesses
- 8.3 Westinghouse
  - Frank Conrad
  - KDKA Pittsburgh, 1920
  - WJZ Newark, New Jersey, 1921
- 8.4 Class A Stations
  - 360-meter band
- 8.5 Class B Stations
  - 400-meter band
  - 500–1000 watts
  - all live: no phonographic recordings
  - “Bertha Brainard Broadcasting Broadway”, mentioned in Hilmes, beginning in 1922
- 8.6 RCA
  - took over WJZ and WJY, 1923
- 8.7 A&T
  - opened WEAF, New York
- 8.8 General Electric
  - WGY, Schenectady, 1922
- 8.9 Hilmes: “radio would ultimately be a commercial medium in private hands” (49)
9 Toll Broadcasting
- 9.1 AT&T, 1923
- 9.2 allowed individuals and businesses to buy blocks of time
- 9.3 similar to using a telephone booth
- 9.4 first established at WEAF, New York
10 Network Broadcasting
- 10.1 economies of scale
  - originate a program in New York
  - distribute over AT&T telephone land lines across the country
  - allowed AT&T to expand “toll broadcasting” to a national level
- 10.2 The Eveready Hour
  - sponsored by National Carbon Company
  - promote Eveready batteries
  - launched December 4, 1923
  - stage variety program
  - Emcee Graham MacNamee
- 10.3 National Broadcasting Company
  - AT&T sold its radio interests to RCA, July 1926
  - RCA announced new “NBC” networks
  - NBC Red
    - former AT&T stations
    - WEAF, flagship
  - NBC Blue
    - RCA stations
    - WJZ, flagship
  - RCA dominance
    - radio transmission
    - radio receivers
    - radio programming