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Radio History

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Joe Clark January 21, 2002 Mrs. Perkins AP U.S. History The radio has evolved over time. The radio we listen to today has a different format, purpose, viewer reach, and clarity than it did before the 1950s. The radio has survived the threat of the television industry by changing with the times. It has been dealt with in the law through acts and the creation of the government regulating agency (FCC). Today the radio is the cheapest and most affective way to communicate with everyone around the world. It began with the invention of the telegraph by Samuel Morse in 1844 and developed as the knowledgeable minds of inventors and engineers worked from the late 1800s to the present to create the powerful communications medium we know today …show more content…

Along with the ability to connect stations by wire came cultural issues. Americans feared monopolies. AT&T already controlled the telephone business and also had control over the radio wires. AT&T feared that they would lose their telephone monopoly if they did not withdraw from the radio monopoly. At the same time RCA, GE, and Westinghouse worried about government interference. These companies were interested in achieving national radio "with maximum profit and minimum public fuss over monopoly" (Smulyan 58). In 1926 they solved the problem by creating a separate broadcast organization that would lease telephone lines from AT&T. The new company was NBC (National Broadcasting System). Now there were two NBC stations that were operated independently that had coast to coast connections to local stations. The arrangement pleased the government, the companies, and the public (Vivian 177). Radio was still lacking in regulations. There were too many stations broadcasting at the same frequencies interrupting each others broadcasts. This was frustrating for the listeners and the broadcasters. The solution was the Radio Act of 1927 (Keith 6). This act created the Federal Radio Commission (FRC). The FRC's responsibility was "to license radio stations ‘if public convenience, interest or necessity is thereby served.'" The law also stated that the air waves were property of the United States government and renewable licenses would be issued for three year

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