ABSTRACT
The technological predecessors of broadcasting date from at least 1842, the patent year of the electromagnetic telegraph. Broadcasting itself originated almost by accident. Although the first radio broadcasting stations signed on about 1920, the business structure that would provide radio’s financial support did not fully develop until about a decade later. By the time of the Great Depression, radio had begun to develop the program genres that are still in use today Dramas, game shows, situation comedies, musical and variety shows, news commentary, sports play-by-play. Radio broadcasting became the primary entertainment medium for many US homes in the 1930s. Radio flourished during World War II and the later 1940s. During the 1950s, television spread and grew into the dominant glamour medium. Radio, in turn, lost its huge network audiences and had to remake itself to survive.
