ABSTRACT
To really understand the TV enterprise and the tensions involved in its current transformation, you have to understand how it started. You have to know, for example, that American regulators and industry executives saw the medium as related closely to radio. Back in the first half of the twentieth century, both radio and TV were centered on broadcasting-the use of public airwaves to send audio (for radio) and audiovisual (for television) signals to sets that Americans bought for their homes. Moreover, the companies that gained control of television and shaped its commercial development were by and large the same firms that had become giants in radio.
