We are receiving these returns through the cooperation and by special arrangement with the Pittsburgh Post and Sun. We'd appreciate it if anyone hearing this broadcast would communicate with us as we are very anxious to know how far the broadcast is reaching and how it is being received So began the first broadcast by a commercially-licensed radio station. Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company saw the potential of radio, which at the time was mainly used as a means of two-way communication and referred to as wireless telephony, to broadcast programming to the general public.
Previously radio had been relegated to amateur operators, but the practice had dropped in popularity after the U. Harry P. He saw radio as a way to communicate with vast numbers of people over a large geographic area instantaneously.
Assistant Chief Engineer Frank Conrad had already been making broadcasts via ham radio in the immediate Pittsburgh area, but there was little demand for radio receivers outside that relatively small group of aficionados.
So a small shack was built on the roof of a Westinghouse building in Pittsburgh, complete with antenna and a watt transmitter. On November 2, , Leo Rosenberg broadcast the Harding-Cox presidential election returns, marking the first broadcast by a licensed radio station.
According to Orrin Dunlap Jr. By , there were more than five hundred licensed stations on the air throughout the nation. One of the first fields that radio changed was politics. The first broadcast was of the Harding-Cox election returns, but more than that, radio gave a way for politicians to reach out to and communicate with their constituents. Harding delivered his message to the nation. Historian Susan J.
Douglas notes that people thought radio would improve politics. The first live sporting event was the Johnny Ray vs. Sports broadcasting became a staple of radio stations, and cemented the industry in America. Educators used radio as means of fund-raising and for improving transmitter and receiver technologies.
Some institutes even began to offer courses over the radio. Besides broadcasting sports and politics, KDKA also offered public services to its audience, including: church services, market reports, weather forecasts and crop information. Radio offered a means to reach a larger community including those who were isolated from much of the nation in rural areas.
He frequently played records over the airwaves for the benefit of his friends. This was just the sort of thing Westinghouse had in mind, and it asked Conrad to help set up a regularly transmitting station in Pittsburgh.
They chose that date because it was election day, and the power of radio was proven when people could hear the results of the Harding-Cox presidential race before they read about it in the newspaper. KDKA was a huge hit, inspiring other companies to take up broadcasting.
In four years there were commercial stations around the country. To keep up with the cost of improving equipment and paying for performers, stations turned to advertisers. In August , the first radio ad, for a real estate developer, was aired in New York City. Networks of local stations developed to share programming and became big business.
Their first nationwide broadcast was the Rose Bowl football game from Pasadena. The burgeoning industry made the airwaves so jammed and chaotic that the Federal Radio Commission was established in to assign frequencies to broadcasters. The entry of mass communication into American homes meant, among other things, the development of a mass culture. The same songs were heard across the country, news travelled fast, and heroes like Charles Lindbergh or Joe Louis were, in a new way, accessible to all.
Technological refinements in radio continued. Early in the s, headsets were replaced with speakers. In , FM radio became available.
0コメント