Passage Two Characteristics of American Radio

John Vivian

Radio in the Private Sector

A Westinghouse engineer in Pittsburgh, Frank Conrad, fiddled with radiotelegraphy in his home garage, playing music as he experimented. People with homemade receivers liked what they heard from Conrad’s transmitter, and soon he had a following.When Conrad’s Westinghouse bosses learned that he had become a local celebrity, they saw profit in building receivers that consumers could buy at $10 a set and take home to listen to.[To encourage sales of the receivers,Westinghouse built a station to provide regular programming of news sports and music mostly music. That station, KDKA, became the nation's first licensed commercial station in 1920.

The licensing of KDKA by the government was important because it demonstrated the United States’ commitment to placing radio in the privat sector. In Europe, broadcasting was a government monopoly. KDKA'S entertainment programming also sent American broadcasting in a certain direction. In many other countries, radio was used mostly for education and high culuure, not mass entertainment.

Role of Advertising

Westinghouse never expected KDKA itsel to makke money,only to spur sles f$10 Westinghouse home receivers.The economic base of KDKA and the resrof American brosdcasting changed in 1922 when WEAF in New York accepted $50 from a real estate developer and allowed him 10 minutes to pitc his new Long Island apartments. Then the Gimbel's department store tried radio advertising. Within months, companies were clamoring for air time The Lucky Strike Orchestra produced prograns, as did the Taystee Loafers from the Taystee bread company.andhe &P Gypsies,the Goodrich Silvertown Orchestra, and the Interwoven Pair from the sock company.

In those first few years of the 1920s,American radio took on these distinctive traits. 

• Private rather than state ownership of the broadcast systen.

• An entertainment thrust to programning that emphasized popular culture.

• An economic foundation based on selling time to advertisers who needed to reach a mass audience of consumers.

Noncommercial Radio

American radio was already solidly established as a commercially supported medium when Congress established a regulatory agency in 1927, the Federal Radio Commission. To assure that radio's potential as an educational medium was not lost,the FRC reserved some licenses for noncommercial stations.These went mostly to stations operated by colleges and other institutions that would finance their operation without advertising.Today, about 10 percent of the nation's radic stations hold noncommercial licenses. Many of these are low-power stations that colleges operate as training facilities.

In 1967 Congress passed the Public Broadcasting Act to create a nationa noncommercial radio system. Every major city and most college towns have public radio station, most of which carry specialized programs that do not have large enough audiences to attract advertisers. Classical music, news ano documentaries are programming mainstays at most publie stations.

Many noncommercial stations are affiliates of National Public RadioD network that went on the air in 1970.NPR was created with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a quasi governmental agency that channe. federal funds into the national public radio system.Two NPR news programs.“Morning Edition"and“All Things Considered.” have earned a loyal following. NPR offers about 50 hours of programming a week to affiliate stations. Beginnin in 1981 American Public Radio of St.PaulMinnesota, also offered prograns to noncommercial stations.Today,APR has been subsumed by Public Radi International,which is a major alternative and also a complementar programming source to NPR.

Neither noncommercial stations nor their networks carry advertising,but supporting foundations and corporations are acknowledged on the air a underwriters. In recent years some of these acknowledgements have come resemble advertising, but without exhortations, which the FCC prohibits.