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wired nation
Ways to finance radio?
• The government just creates a service and gives it money (Canada, Mexico)
• Finance radio by a license tax on receivers (Britain, BBC)
• Non-profits fund radio• Listener subscriber radio• Commercials
wired nation
All radio energy moves in sine waves
• Hertz: How many cycles the wave travels in a second.• 1,000 times = 1 kilohertz• 1,000,000 times = 1 megahertz
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Waves can modulate by amplitude
Amplitude Modulation: The sound changes because the size of the wave gets bigger and smaller; the length of the wave stays the same
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Waves can modulate by frequency
Frequency modulation: The size stays the same, but the frequency constantly changes.
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Thank you FM wave!
But FM waves don’t modulate by
amplitude, so they stay smooth all the
way home!
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Broadcasting signals get allocated by hertz
•AM radio - 535 kilohertz to 1.7 megahertz •Short wave radio - bands from 5.9 megahertz to 26.1 megahertz •Citizens band (CB) radio - 26.96 megahertz to 27.41 megahertz •Television stations - 54 to 88 megahertz for channels 2 through 6 •FM radio - 88 megahertz to 108 megahertz •Television stations - 174 to 220 megahertz for channels 7
through 13
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How to convert meters into kilohertz
• Radio stations used to say “This station broadcasts at 240 meters”
• That is, the length of the wave was 240 meters (meter x .91 = yard)
• Now they define the frequency by hertz (How many cycles the wave travels in a second)– To convert to kilohertz (AM radio):
• Divide your meter measurement into 300,000• Eg., a station broadcasting at 240 meters,
broadcasts at • 300,000/240 = 1,250 kHz
– To convert to megahertz (FM radio):• 300/240 = 1.25 mHz
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In early 1920s . . .
• Most stations broadcast at 360 meters . . . – 833.33 kHz
• Government/weather stations broadcast at 485 meters . . . – 645 kHz
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Don’t confuse hertz with watts!
• Hertz is the frequency rate at which a station broadcasts
• Wattage is how much electrical power the transmitter uses (one watt = one joule per second)
• Please, don’t ask me what a joule is, basically it’s a unit of electrical energy . . .
wired nation
The Hoover radio conferences, 1921-1926
• Conferences allow Secretary of Commerce Hoover to establish license requirements, different wattage levels for different stations
• Stations start naming themselves with four letters
• 1923: ASCAP negotiates license fees for radio stations using music, most of it live
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National Broadcasting Company created, 1926
• AT&T agrees to stop suing companies it claims are illegally using its hookup lines
• AT&T, GE and Westinghouse will equip RCA spinoff (NBC) which produces programming for radio
• Sets up initial network of 19 radio stations
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1926, Zenith v. United States
• Zenith challenges Hoover’s authority to allocate licenses up to the Supreme Court
• Supreme Court says that Congress did not give government authority to assign licenses, power, frequencies
• The “period of chaos” begins
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1927, The Federal Radio Commission
• Five commissioners supervise the airwaves
• Could allocate licenses and create different classes of radio stations
• Radio stations must operate at the “public interest, convenience, or necessity.”
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1928, FRC license allocation
• NBC affiliate stations get big “clear channel” licenses
• Educational stations get weaker licenses or are forced to share licenses with each other
• Commercial stations defined as “general interest” stations, deserving of better licenses
• Non-commercial stations as “propaganda” stations, deserving of lesser signals
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The National Association of Broadcasters (1922)
• Creating to lobby for the interest of radio station owners
• Negotiated with groups like ASCAP for artist royalty rates
• Lobbied Secretary of Commerce and Congress over spectrum allocations
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Thanks to Jerry Berg http://www181.pair.com/otsw/AppCards.html
Advertising agencies push radio commercials• Push “indirect
advertising”• Call it the
“American system”
• Emphasize sincerity– Radio is like the
camera, photograph– It is a uniquely sincere
form of communication
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Betty Crocker evolution, 1936-1986
http://chnm.gmu.edu/features/sidelights/crocker.html
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Country music on the radio
Jimmy Rodgers, the Carter Family, and Patsy Montana (“America’s number 1 singing cowgirl”)
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The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
• British Broadcasting company owned by radio manufacturers, 1922
• Licensed by Post Office• Financed by a tax on
radio receivers• Nationalized in 1927 Sir John Reith
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Amos ‘n Andy, 1929
• First national hit comedy radio show
• 1931, black newspaper Pittsburgh Courier gets 700,000 signers to demand show be cancelled
Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll
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• Comedy show about a Jewish immigrant family’s acculturation to the United States
• Nationally syndicated on NBC in 1929
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National Committee for Education by Radio (NCER),
1930• Journalists and
educators who advocate for non-commercial, educational radio
• Backed by the Payne fund
Joy Elmer Morgan, educational radio advocate
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Three arguments against commercial broadasting
• Commercial radio will always suppress criticism of big business
• Radio programming should be broadcast for its own sake, not for the sake of selling commercials
• Corporate radio fundamentally undemocratic
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Problems with media reformers of 1930s
• Scattered into a wide variety of non-profit groups and fiefdoms
• Lots of generals, not enough soldiers
• Elitist, highbrow, and condescending of most radio listeners, who enjoyed the popular programming provided by NBC
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Canadian broadcasting system
• Begun in 1932 with BBC-style receiver license system
• Established as Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1936
• Private commercial broadcasters limited to low power local stations
• Allowed partial advertising to supplement station income
Graham Spry: “It’s the state or the United States.”
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National Advisory Council on Radio in Education (NACRE,
1930)• Non-profit created to
work with NBC to produce educational radio for the networks
• Argued that commercialism and educational radio could cooperate with one another
• Designed to co-opt the 1930s media reform movement
Robert Hutchins (left) of NACRE
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The Communications Act of 1934
• Creates permanent regulatory entity: the Federal Communications Commission
• Wagner/Hatfield amendment would have allotted 25 percent of broadcast channels to "educational, religious, agricultural, labor, cooperative, and similar non-profit-making associations."
• Defeated by radio industry lobby