History of broadcasting
It is generally recognized that the first radio transmission was made from a temporary station set up by Guglielmo Marconi in 1895 on the Isle of Wight.
This followed on from pioneering work in the field by a number of people including Alessandro Volta, André-Marie Ampère, Georg Ohm, James Clerk Maxwell and Heinrich Rudolf Hertz.
However, in the United Kingdom, Hungary, France and some other places, from as early as 1890 there was already a system whereby news, music, live theatre, music hall, fiction readings, religious broadcasts, etc., were available in private homes [and other places] via the conventional telephone line, with subscribers being supplied with a number of special, personalised headsets.
A dramatic change came in the 1960s with the introduction of small inexpensive portable transistor radios which greatly expanded ownership and usage.
2CM was run by Charles MacLuran who started the station in 1921 with regular Sunday evening broadcasts from the Wentworth Hotel, Sydney.
Whilst the engineers were setting up the station's 50-watt transmitter in the town being visited, salesmen would sign up advertisers for the fortnight that 3YB would broadcast from that region.
The Kanimbla was constructed in Northern Ireland in 1936 and was primarily designed for McIlwraith, McEacharn & Co to ply passengers between Cairns and Fremantle.
Main themes in the history include the development of the engineering technology; the construction of stations across the country and the building of networks; the widespread purchase and use of radio and television sets by the general public; debates regarding state versus private ownership of stations; financing of the broadcasts media through the government, license fees, and advertising; the changing content of the programming; the impact of the programming on Canadian identity; the media's influence on shaping audience responses to music, sports and politics; the role of the Québec government; Francophone versus Anglophone cultural tastes; the role of other ethnic groups and First Nations; fears of American cultural imperialism via the airwaves; and the impact of the Internet and smartphones on traditional broadcasting media.
[13][14] Radio signals carried long distances, and a number of American stations could easily be received in parts of Canada.
This proved instrumental in giving the company a lead in developing an experimental radio broadcasting station immediately after the war.
Station CKCE began in April 1922 and was so well received that the Star pushed forward with its own studios and transmitting facilities, returning to the air as CFCA in late June 1922.
This was despite an agreement with the US Department of Commerce (which supervised broadcasting in the years prior to the Federal Radio Commission) that a certain number of frequencies were reserved exclusively for Canadian signals.
Due to the proximity of Cuba to the U.S. state of Florida, some Cubans would try to listen to the American stations whose signals reached the island.
[21] PWX broadcast programs in both English and Spanish, and its signal was easily received at night in a number of American cities.
[22] Another early station in Cuba was owned by Frank Jones, an American amateur radio operator and Chief Engineer of the Tuinucu Sugar Company.
Due to these policies, French citizens learned little or nothing of the events surrounding the lead-up to World War II from the radio.
As a result, the French population was often puzzled about the specifics of current events, and their morale and support for government policies was much weaker than in Britain, where news broadcasts were used to communicate regularly with citizens.
Immediately following Hitler's assumption of power in 1933, Joseph Goebbels became head of the Ministry for Propaganda and Public Enlightenment and took full control of regulating and overseeing broadcasting.
[35] Germany was easily served by a number of European mediumwave stations, including the BBC, but the Nazis made it illegal for Germans to listen to foreign broadcasts.
[38] Programming on Japanese stations of the 1920s included music, news, language instruction (lessons were offered in English, French and German) and education talks.
Still, in November 1923, CYL in Mexico City went on the air, featuring music (both folk songs and popular dance concerts), religious services, and news.
CYL used as its slogans "El Universal" and "La Casa del Radio", and it won over the government by giving political candidates the opportunity to use the station to campaign.
[45] There were radio stations operating in the Philippines, including one owned by American businessman named Henry Hermann, as early as 1922, according to some sources; not much documentation about that period of time exists.
Two years later, in October 1922, a consortium of radio manufacturers formed the British Broadcasting Company (BBC); they allowed some sponsored programs, although they were not what we would today consider a fully commercial station.
David Sarnoff has been considered by many as "the prescient prophet of broadcasting who predicted the medium's rise in 1915", referring to his radio music box concept.
"[62] Soon, other colleges across the U.S. began adding radio broadcasting courses to their curricula; some, like the University of Iowa, even provided what today would be known as distance-learning credits.
[65] In 1934, several independent stations formed the Mutual Broadcasting System to exchange syndicated programming, including The Lone Ranger and Amos 'n' Andy.
At the commencement of his career, Banks was known for his double entendres and risque remarks; as a talk back host he was outspoken in his conservative views, especially regarding the White Australia policy and Apartheid.
Inside Berlin, Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) became a key source of news in the German Democratic Republic.
Announcers such as Livy Wijemanne, Vernon Corea,[72] Pearl Ondaatje, Tim Horshington, Greg Roskowski, Jimmy Bharucha, Mil Sansoni, Eardley Peiris, Shirley Perera, Bob Harvie, Christopher Greet, Prosper Fernando, Ameen Sayani (of Binaca Geetmala fame),[73]Karunaratne Abeysekera, S.P.Mylvaganam (the first Tamil announcer on the Commercial Service) were hugely popular across South Asia.
