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Marconi
Italian Inventor that sent and received the first Radio Signal. It wasn't a song or a voice, but just the signal being sent without a wire. Back then it was hard to tell who invented what, so no one really knows. -
Audion Tube
Lee de Forest created or borrowed this. It was basically an amp, which it takes the signal and amps it up to another. This allowed them to send signals even further. -
Titanic
Without the invention of Radio, every single person would have died on the Titanic. They communicated for help before they completely sunk. Without radio, the ship would have been sunk without anyone knowing. -
Radio Stations
Took roughly 25 years for them to be able to broadcast music and voice. KDKA was one of the first stations. It has been around 93 years. -
Radio Advertising
This was how the radio stations made money. The first radio station to do this was WEAF. They aired a 10 minute commercial, or a toll broadcast for an apartment complex. They charged them $50 for this. It was $5 a minute, now it is around $5,000 per 30 seconds. -
FRC
The FRC was started in 1927, now known as the FCC. The companies who were paying a lot of money for advertisements, but no one was hearing them because of something called "Uncle Charlies". Basically, anyone could make a radio station if they wanted to, and could be picked up by neighbors. The FCC stepped in and made it to where you needed a license to broadcast so the advertisements wouldn't go to waist. They assigned frequencies. -
Golden Era
It was during the great depression, and there was a war going on. Everyone was pretty much listening to radio for an escape of life, and almost everyone had saved up for one. These radios were giant and expensive. The whole family can listen to it and enjoy it. -
The Fall
In the 1930's TV started too boom. The radio shows couldn't transfer to the TV because sometimes the characters voices didn't match the actor. For example: a littlle girl played by a 40 year old on the radio could not transition to television, people wouldn't like that. Advertisers moved to the TV, and the radio business started to lose money. They moved because they can SHOW and TELL about their product, instead of just tell. -
Radio is Saved
Music saved the radio! People back then could not listen to music easily, so this was a great way to save radio. Now the radio was advancing once again.
