Radio Days

By mvenz01
  • RCA radio sales skyrocket

    For their first 3 years selling radios, RCA’s revenues amounted to $83,500,000
  • How popular radio was compared to other entertainment sources

    Radio entertainment is so popular that theaters did not open until after the extremely popular “Amos ‘n Andy” show was over.
  • Census and radios

    United States Census is the first in that country's history to require households to report the ownership of a radio-receiving set.
  • The "birthyear" of Little Orphan Annie

    Little Orphan Annie is a daily American comic strip created by Harold Gray and syndicated by the Tribune Media Services
  • Rules of radio stations

    The three major news-wire services, AP, UP, and INS, announced they would no longer allow radio stations to use their stories.
  • perfection of radio

    Armstrong solved the radio’s last major problem, static, by inventing frequency modulation (FM), which he successfully tested in 1933
  • Radio becomes normal

    A radio can be found in 60% of American Households
  • Response to radio rules

    the radio industry established its own news-gathering agency
  • # of radio stations 1935

    585 radio stations in the U.S.
  • Major wire services relented

    They began supplying their services to subscribing radio stations
  • Radio Advertising Expenditures in Millions of Dollars

    122.3
  • Creation of new band

    the FCC announced the creation of an Apex band of stations, consisting of 75 channels spanning from 41.02 to 43.98 MHz.
  • Radio impact for WWII

    Radio's instant, on-the-spot reports of dramatic events drew large audiences starting in 1938 in the run-up to World War II and played a major role during the conflict
  • Scare Tactics

    newspapers deliberately played up a 1938 radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds by claiming that the broadcast triggered a mass hysteria of people who thought they were listening to a real-life account of an ongoing alien invasion
  • Networking takes over

    By 1938, 40 percent of the nation’s 660 stations were affiliated with a network, and many were part of a chain
  • Radio importance during WWII

    Almost immediate coverage of events
  • FM stations were superior

    the Apex stations were ordered to be off the air by January 1, 1941, if they had not converted to FM by that date.
  • TV starts taking over

    The most popular drama and comedy shows and most of their stars migrated from radio to television in the 1940s
  • FM Band

    FM broadcasting stations were first authorized in 1941
  • ABC Formes

    the Federal Communications Commission forced NBC to sell a part of its system to Edward J. Noble, who formed the American Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).