Chapter 4

In this chapter, I found a lot of things to be similar to what I am learning in my COM 130 class. In chapter four, they examined the scientific, cultural, political, and economic factors surrounding radio's development and perseverance. They explore the origins of broadcasting, from the early theories about radio waves to the critical formation of RCA as a national radio monopoly. They then discuss the evolution of commercial radio, including the rise of NBC as the first network, the development of CBS, and the establishment of the first federal radio legislation. Reviewing the fascinating ways in which radio reinvented itself in the 1950's, they examine television's impact on radio programming, the invention of FM radio, radio's convergence with sound recording, and the influence of various formats. Lastly, they survey the economic health, increasing conglomeration, and cultural impact of commercial and noncommercial radio today, including the emergence of noncommercial low power FM service.

On page 116, the evolution of radio was an important yet useful piece of information. When Westinghouse engineered Frank Conrad to set up a crude radio studio above his Pittsburgh garage in 1916, placing a microphone right in front or a phonograph to broadcast music and news to his friends (whom Conrad supplied with receivers) two evenings a week on some experimental station 8XK, he unofficially became one of the medium's first disc jockeys. In 1920, a Westinghouse executive, intrigued by Conrad's curious hobby, realized the potential of radio as a mass medium. Westinghouse then established the station KDKA, which is generally regarded as the first commercial broadcast station. KDKA is most noted for airing national returns from the Cox Harding presidential election on November 2, 1920, an event most historians consider the first professional broadcast.

Older media forms do not generally disappear when confronted by newer forms. Instead, they adapt. Although radio threatened sound recordings in the 1920's, the recording industry adjusted to the economic and social challenges posed by radio's arrival. Remarkably, the arrival of television on the 1950's marked the only time in media history in which a new medium stole virtually every national programming and advertising strategy from an older medium. Television snatched radio's advertisers, program genres, major celebrities, and large evening audiences. The TV set even physically displaced the radio as the living room centerpiece across America. Nevertheless, radio adapted and continued to reach an audience. While reading this chapter, I was bored because I had basically already talked about this stuff in my other class. Nevertheless, I now know this information like the back of my hand.