Transcript Ch. 5 - PAWS

Chapter 5
Popular Radio and the
Origins of Broadcasting
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The Demise of Local Radio
The consolidation of stations into
massive radio groups like
Cumulus and Clear Channel in the
1990s and 2000s resulted in
budget-cutting demands from the
corporate offices and, ultimately,
stations with less connection to
their local audience.
Maxwell and Hertz Discover Radio
Waves

James Maxwell

Theorized the existence of
electromagnetic waves (1860s)
 Believed
a portion of these waves,
later known as radio waves, could be
harnessed to transmit signals

Heinrich Hertz
Proved Maxwell’s theories (1880s)
 Advanced the development of
wireless communication

Figure 5.1: The Electromagnetic
Spectrum
Marconi and the Inventors of
Wireless Telegraphy

Guglielmo Marconi


Alexander Popov


Received a patent on wireless
telegraphy in England in 1896
Made parallel discoveries in Russia
Nikola Tesla
Invented a wireless system in 1892
 Marconi used much of Tesla’s
work.
 Deemed inventor of radio in 1943

Wireless Telephony: De Forest
and Fessenden

Lee De Forest
Wrote the first Ph.D. thesis on
wireless technology in 1899
 Primary interest was wireless
telephony
 Biggest breakthrough was the
development of the Audion


Reginald Fessenden

First voice broadcast
Regulating a New Medium

Radio Act of 1912
Required licensing
 Adopted the SOS distress signal


World War I
Navy took control of radio.
 Corporate heads and government
leaders conspired to make sure
radio served American interests.

Regulating a New Medium (cont.)

The formation of RCA
GE broke off negotiations to sell
radio technologies to European
companies, then took the lead in
founding the Radio Corporation of
America (RCA).
 RCA became a monopoly and gave
the United States almost total
control over the emerging mass
medium of broadcasting.

The Evolution of Radio

Frank Conrad


Charles “Doc” Herrold


Established the first commercial
broadcast station, KDKA, in 1920
Began a station in 1909 that later
became KCBS
U.S. Commerce Dept.

Licensed five radio stations for
operation in 1921
The RCA Partnership Unravels

AT&T




Broke its RCA agreements in 1922 in an
attempt to monopolize radio
Began making and selling its own radio
receivers
Started WEAF in New York, the first
station to sell advertising
Created the first radio network

GE, Westinghouse, and RCA created their
own radio group in response
Sarnoff and NBC: Building the
“Blue” and “Red” Networks

David Sarnoff
RCA’s first general manager
 Created NBC, which was shared by
RCA, GE, and Westinghouse
 The original telephone group
became known as the NBC-Red
network, and the radio group
became known as the NBC-Blue
network.

Sarnoff and NBC: Building the
“Blue” and “Red” Networks
(cont.)

NBC affiliates




Paid NBC to carry its programs
NBC sold national advertising.
Emphasized national programming
Sarnoff also


Cut a deal with GM to manufacture car
radios
Merged RCA with the Victor Talking
Machine Company
Government Scrutiny Ends RCANBC Monopoly
FTC charged RCA with violations
of antitrust laws as early as
1923.
 RCA bought out GE and
Westinghouse’s shares in RCA’s
manufacturing business.
 Government accepted RCA’s
breakup proposal before trial.

CBS and Paley: Challenging NBC
First attempt at CBS failed
 William S. Paley


Bought a controlling share in the
company, and launched new
concepts and strategies
 Hired
PR guru Edward Bernays
 Used option time to lure affiliates
 Raided NBC for top talent

Became the top network in 1949
Bringing Order to Chaos with the
Radio Act of 1927

Radio Act of 1927
Stated that stations could only
license their channels as long as
they operated to serve the “public
interest, convenience, or
necessity”
 Created the Federal Radio
Commission (FRC), which became
the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) with the
Communications Act of 1934

Bringing Order to Chaos with the
Radio Act of 1927(cont.)

Activist FCC went after the
networks in 1941
Outlawed the practice of option
time
 Demanded that RCA sell one of its
two NBC networks

 NBC-Blue
was sold and became the
American Broadcasting Company
(ABC).
The Golden Age of Radio

Early radio programming
Only a handful of stations
 Live music daily
 15-minute evening programs

 Variety
shows
 Quiz shows
 Dramatic programs

Most shows had a single sponsor.
Radio Programming as a Cultural
Mirror

The most popular comedy by the
1930s was Amos ‘n’ Andy
Stereotyped black characters as
shiftless and stupid
 Created the idea of the serial show
 Moved to TV and was the first
show with an entirely black cast
 Canceled in 1953 amid the
strengthening Civil Rights
movement

The Authority of Radio

War of the Worlds



Broadcast by Orson Welles on Halloween
eve in 1938 in the style of a radio news
program
Created a panic in New York and New
Jersey
Prompted the FCC to call for stricter
warnings before and during programs
imitating the style of radio news
Transistors Make Radio Portable

Transistors
Small electrical devices that could
receive and amplify radio signals
 More durable and less expensive
than vacuum tubes, used less
power, and produced less heat
 Led to the creation of small pocket
radios
 Made radio portable

The FM Revolution and Edwin
Armstrong

FM (frequency modulation) radio

Discovered and developed by
Edwin Armstrong in the 1920s and
1930s
 Greater
fidelity and clarity than AM
(amplitude modulation) radio
 Lost RCA’s support to TV
FCC opened up spectrum space for
FM in the 1960s
 Surpassed AM radio by the 1980s

The Rise of Format and Top 40
Radio

Format radio
Formula-driven radio
 Management controls programming
 Developed by Todd Storz in 1949
 Used rotation
 Led to the development of the Top
40 format
 Creation of the program log and
day parts

Resisting the Top 40

Expansion of FM in the mid1960s created room for
experimenting.
Progressive rock
 Experimental stations playing hardedged political folk music
 Album-oriented rock (AOR)
 General classic rock

The Sounds of Commercial Radio

Listeners today are unlike
radio’s first audiences in several
ways.
Radio has become a secondary or
background medium.
 Peak listening time is during drive
time rather than prime time.
 Stations are more specialized.

Format Specialization

Variety of formats
News, talk, and information
 Music formats

 Adult
contemporary (AC)
 Contemporary hit radio (CHR)
 Country
 Urban contemporary
 Spanish language
 Classic rock
 Oldies
Figure 5.4: Most Popular U.S.
Radio Formats, Ages 12+
Nonprofit Radio and NPR

Early years of nonprofit radio


In 1948, the government began
authorizing noncommercial licenses
and approved 10-watt FM stations.
First noncommercial networks

Public Broadcasting Act of 1967
 National
Public Radio (NPR) and the
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)
mandated to provide alternatives to
commercial broadcasting
New Radio Technologies Offer
More Stations

Satellite radio
XM and Sirius merged to become
Sirius XM Radio in 2008.
 Accessible through satellite radios,
mobile devices, and cars with a
satellite band


HD Radio

Enables multicasting by AM and FM
broadcasters and provides program
data
Radio and Convergence

Internet radio
Broadcast radio stations now have
an online presence.
 Online-only radio stations like
Pandora growing in popularity


Podcasting and portable listening

A popular way to listen to radiostyle programs on a computer or
portable music device
Local and National Advertising

Radio advertising
Comprises 8% of media advertising
 Industry revenue has dropped, but
the number of stations keeps
growing.
 Only 20% of budget goes toward
programming costs.
 National networks provide
programming in exchange for time
slots for national ads.

Manipulating Playlists with Payola

Payola
Record promoters paying deejays
to play particular records
 Rampant in 1950s


In 2007, four of the largest
broadcasting companies agreed
to pay $12.5 million to settle a
payola investigation by the FCC.
Radio Ownership: From Diversity
to Consolidation

Telecommunications Act of 1996
Eliminated most ownership
restrictions in radio
 Combined, Clear Channel,
Cumulus, and CBS

 Own
roughly 1,500 radio stations
(more than 10% of all radio stations)
 Dominate the fifty largest markets
 Control about one-half of the entire
radio industry’s $17.4 billion revenue
Alternative Voices
In the 1990s, activists set up
“pirate” stations to protest large
corporations’ control over radio.
 In 2000, the FCC approved
noncommercial low-power FM
(LPFM) stations to give voice to
local groups lacking access.
 Prometheus Radio Project


Educates about low-power radio
Radio and the Democracy of the
Airwaves
Influence of radio in the
formation of American culture
cannot be overestimated.
 Early radio debates



Requirement to operate in the
“public interest, convenience, or
necessity”
Trend of radio moving away
from its localism