History of Radio Broadcasting Journalism
Sometimes inspirational, often controversial, the history of radio broadcasting reveals American journalism at its best. From radio's humble beginnings of Morse code dots and dashes to when man landed on the moon 70 years later, radio stations broadcast historic events to remote areas not able to receive a TV signal. Radio broadcast journalism has played an integral part in airing significant events in our nation's history around the world.
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Early News Radio
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The first U.S. radio broadcast was the 1920 Presidential election reported by Pittsburgh's KDKA, one of only 18 stations. WJAC in Nebraska began a daily news broadcast in 1922. By the mid-1920s, newspapers owned 69 stations while General Electric and Westinghouse owned the majority of the remaining stations. The U.S. Department of Commerce enacted the 1927 Radio Act that restricted private radio communications to the AM radio band. According to Max Rudolph, Director of Broadcasting at Central Texas College, the Communications Act of 1934 created the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) which was in charge of issuing radio licenses.
Birth of News Radio
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In the 1920s, radio broadcasts consisted of between two to four hours of daily news read from newspapers. Classical music and church sermons took up the remaining programming. Daily 15-minute newscasts were common on stations by 1924. In 1927, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) came on the airwaves followed by the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). By 1928, CBS and NBC offered political commentaries and analysis of news events, including the Democratic and Republican national conventions.
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Network News Radio
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The NBC Red Network broadcast the first daily network news program in 1930 with Floyd Gibbons. Soon, CBS aired its news program featuring journalist Lowell Thomas. In 1935, most stations aired 15-minute news broadcasts or two five-minute news programs daily. The CBS news commentary program, “The March of Time,” reported on the growing European war threat by Edward R. Murrow.
Newpaper/Radio War
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Listeners turned to radio more and newspaper less for their news. In 1932, newspapers stopped publishing radio schedules. The Associated and United Press services stopped feeding news stories over the wire to stations for free. In 1933, CBS retaliated and created its own news network with offices in New York, Chicago, L.A. and Washington, D.C., and every U.S. city with a population over 20,000. The newspapers and wire services finally reached an agreement with the radio networks to form the Press-Radio Bureau that provided free news stories to stations in exchange for the stations not taking away advertisers from newspapers.
Popular Radio News Programs
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NBC's the "University of Chicago Round-table," which aired from 1931 to 1955, was radio's first news hit. The panel discussion's 30-minute format featured guests such as cabinet members, Congressional leaders and prime ministers to address political topics. News programs remained on the networks through the 1950s, such as "People's Platform" on CBS for 14 years and the "Northwestern Reviewing Stand" on the Mutual Broadcasting network for 20 years.
News Radio at War
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News programs increased in the late 1930s due to the interest in the growing war in Europe. By 1941, almost every station in the U.S. had four to five local and one national news program daily. Edward R. Murrow broadcast war reports from London. "Today with Bob Trout" became "European News Roundup," a 15-minute nightly news report. It was followed by a 15-minute commentary by H. V. Kaltenborn. Both shows on CBS were the country's first 30-minute news broadcast. According to Edward Bliss' book "Now the News," from 1941 to 1945, the number of hours devoted to news programs doubled to 11 hours a week. By the early 1950s, news radio programs waned in popularity as the newest medium, television, turned listeners into viewers.
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- Photo Credit retro radio image by Elke Dennis from Fotolia.com
