The RCA partners: GE, Westinghouse, and AT&T eventually settled their disputes over the booming business of radio. A new corporation, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) was created to manage the business of radio broadcasting and would buy up AT&T’s broadcasting business. The phone company would in the future limit its involvement in the radio business to supplying phone lines to connect radio stations.
The introduction of radio networks changed American entertainment and culture by, among other things, homogenizing it. Entertainers in New York could make good money performing over NBC; entertainers elsewhere were unlikely to get radio work at all. Radio entertainment was at first mostly music, although not jazz, which was largely banned from the airwaves. Later, radio experimented with drama, plays meant not to be seen, but to be listened to. In 1928, the first hit radio series appeared. The good news was: it pioneered a new form of entertainment, with a set cast of characters experiencing new adventures every week, and proved audiences could and would follow the story. The bad news was: It was Amos ‘n’ Andy.
- Listen now:
Playlist:
Fanfare
Opening Theme
Hungarian Dance No. 5
Composed in 1869 by Johannes Brahms. Public domain.
Performed by the Fulda Symphonic Orchestra and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 license. Source.
The Barber of Seville
Composed in 1816 by Gioachino Rossini. Public domain.
Public domain recording. Source.
Closing Theme
Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.
Hi, Mark! Although this is my first comment, I’ve been following your work here since the very beginning. First of all, let me just say that this is the best podcast (and yes, I’m considering the likes of Mike Duncan and Dan Carlin). I meant to comment this in episode 52 but ended up procrastinating. The current thread gave me the second chance. I wanted to see if you’d touch the subject but since you havent, let me ask you. I too am an electric engineer and have always been impressed by the works of Reginald Fesseden in Canada and, particularly, of Roberto Landell de Moura in Brazil. Have you heard of the latter? He was a priest that allegedly developed something way closer to the modern radio before Marconi. Any thoghts on this? Thank you for your awesome work: like radio, we’ve been half-duplex friends for over half a decade already!
I was not aware of the work of Fesseden or de Moura, although it does appear they were transmitting sound via radio before Marconi. It’s important to note that the people we credit with “inventing” this or that often were not the first, bur rather the most financially successful. Or the one with the best PR department. Thank you for sharing this.
You are absolutely right on the financial or PR aspects of crediting someone as the inventor of something. de Moura’s life is a great example: he was never recognized and people would often destruct his radios claiming those were “gadgets from the devil”. Although he was responsible for radio transmission of voices for 5 miles at around the same time Marconi only transmitted Morse code signals for 100 yards, the former died as an unrecognized outcast whereas the latter became (and, let me say, justly so) a world hero. de Moura is virtually unknown, even among Brazilians. That being said, there is something of a semantic overload in the word “inventing”. But, again, this is the reality and I 100% agree.