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KDKA in the early 1920s

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Ways to finance radio?

• The government just creates a service and gives it money (Canada, Mexico)

• Finance radio by a license tax on receivers (Britain, BBC)

• Non-profits fund radio• Listener subscriber radio• Commercials

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Science break!

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Remember Cartesian geometry?

Y = x + 1, etc

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. . . which got progressively nastier . . .

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Can I run away and join the circus now?

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. . . Then came sine waves

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All radio energy moves in sine waves

• Hertz: How many cycles the wave travels in a second.• 1,000 times = 1 kilohertz• 1,000,000 times = 1 megahertz

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Waves can modulate by amplitude

Amplitude Modulation: The sound changes because the size of the wave gets bigger and smaller; the length of the wave stays the same

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Waves can modulate by frequency

Frequency modulation: The size stays the same, but the frequency constantly changes.

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Problem: AM waves cause static when they reach the

receiver

ouch!

ooph!

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Thank you FM wave!

But FM waves don’t modulate by

amplitude, so they stay smooth all the

way home!

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Broadcasting signals get allocated by hertz

•AM radio - 535 kilohertz to 1.7 megahertz •Short wave radio - bands from 5.9 megahertz to 26.1 megahertz •Citizens band (CB) radio - 26.96 megahertz to 27.41 megahertz •Television stations - 54 to 88 megahertz for channels 2 through 6 •FM radio - 88 megahertz to 108 megahertz •Television stations - 174 to 220 megahertz for channels 7

through 13

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How to convert meters into kilohertz

• Radio stations used to say “This station broadcasts at 240 meters”

• That is, the length of the wave was 240 meters (meter x .91 = yard)

• Now they define the frequency by hertz (How many cycles the wave travels in a second)– To convert to kilohertz (AM radio):

• Divide your meter measurement into 300,000• Eg., a station broadcasting at 240 meters,

broadcasts at • 300,000/240 = 1,250 kHz

– To convert to megahertz (FM radio):• 300/240 = 1.25 mHz

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In early 1920s . . .

• Most stations broadcast at 360 meters . . . – 833.33 kHz

• Government/weather stations broadcast at 485 meters . . . – 645 kHz

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Don’t confuse hertz with watts!

• Hertz is the frequency rate at which a station broadcasts

• Wattage is how much electrical power the transmitter uses (one watt = one joule per second)

• Please, don’t ask me what a joule is, basically it’s a unit of electrical energy . . .

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. . . Now, back to our story!

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The Hoover radio conferences, 1921-1926

• Conferences allow Secretary of Commerce Hoover to establish license requirements, different wattage levels for different stations

• Stations start naming themselves with four letters

• 1923: ASCAP negotiates license fees for radio stations using music, most of it live

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National Broadcasting Company created, 1926

• AT&T agrees to stop suing companies it claims are illegally using its hookup lines

• AT&T, GE and Westinghouse will equip RCA spinoff (NBC) which produces programming for radio

• Sets up initial network of 19 radio stations

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1926, Zenith v. United States

• Zenith challenges Hoover’s authority to allocate licenses up to the Supreme Court

• Supreme Court says that Congress did not give government authority to assign licenses, power, frequencies

• The “period of chaos” begins

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Speaking of chaos . . .

Dr. John Romulus Brinkley

Welcome to the Brinkley hospital

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1927, The Federal Radio Commission

• Five commissioners supervise the airwaves

• Could allocate licenses and create different classes of radio stations

• Radio stations must operate at the “public interest, convenience, or necessity.”

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1928, FRC license allocation

• NBC affiliate stations get big “clear channel” licenses

• Educational stations get weaker licenses or are forced to share licenses with each other

• Commercial stations defined as “general interest” stations, deserving of better licenses

• Non-commercial stations as “propaganda” stations, deserving of lesser signals

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The National Association of Broadcasters (1922)

• Creating to lobby for the interest of radio station owners

• Negotiated with groups like ASCAP for artist royalty rates

• Lobbied Secretary of Commerce and Congress over spectrum allocations

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Thanks to Jerry Berg http://www181.pair.com/otsw/AppCards.html

Advertising agencies push radio commercials• Push “indirect

advertising”• Call it the

“American system”

• Emphasize sincerity– Radio is like the

camera, photograph– It is a uniquely sincere

form of communication

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Betty Crocker evolution, 1936-1986

http://chnm.gmu.edu/features/sidelights/crocker.html

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Ladies Home Journal ad, 1920

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Country music on the radio

Jimmy Rodgers, the Carter Family, and Patsy Montana (“America’s number 1 singing cowgirl”)

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The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

• British Broadcasting company owned by radio manufacturers, 1922

• Licensed by Post Office• Financed by a tax on

radio receivers• Nationalized in 1927 Sir John Reith

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Amos ‘n Andy, 1929

• First national hit comedy radio show

• 1931, black newspaper Pittsburgh Courier gets 700,000 signers to demand show be cancelled

Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll

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• Comedy show about a Jewish immigrant family’s acculturation to the United States

• Nationally syndicated on NBC in 1929

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National Committee for Education by Radio (NCER),

1930• Journalists and

educators who advocate for non-commercial, educational radio

• Backed by the Payne fund

Joy Elmer Morgan, educational radio advocate

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Three arguments against commercial broadasting

• Commercial radio will always suppress criticism of big business

• Radio programming should be broadcast for its own sake, not for the sake of selling commercials

• Corporate radio fundamentally undemocratic

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Problems with media reformers of 1930s

• Scattered into a wide variety of non-profit groups and fiefdoms

• Lots of generals, not enough soldiers

• Elitist, highbrow, and condescending of most radio listeners, who enjoyed the popular programming provided by NBC

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Canadian broadcasting system

• Begun in 1932 with BBC-style receiver license system

• Established as Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1936

• Private commercial broadcasters limited to low power local stations

• Allowed partial advertising to supplement station income

Graham Spry: “It’s the state or the United States.”

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National Advisory Council on Radio in Education (NACRE,

1930)• Non-profit created to

work with NBC to produce educational radio for the networks

• Argued that commercialism and educational radio could cooperate with one another

• Designed to co-opt the 1930s media reform movement

Robert Hutchins (left) of NACRE

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The Communications Act of 1934

• Creates permanent regulatory entity: the Federal Communications Commission

• Wagner/Hatfield amendment would have allotted 25 percent of broadcast channels to "educational, religious, agricultural, labor, cooperative, and similar non-profit-making associations."

• Defeated by radio industry lobby