Radio

When I was young, my father listed to the radio a fair amount. What I really recall about that in particular is that he'd listen to Denver's KOA, which was an all talk radio station, but not like the ones we have now that are all right or left political talk.  It had a lot of different radio programs, and sports.  He particularly listened to the Denver Broncos and Denver Bears (their minor league baseball team at that time) broadcasts, and the radio shows that they had which discussed those teams. That certainly wasn't all they aired, however, and at one time, when I was fairly young, I used to listen to a fair amount of KOA myself.

The first radio tube, circa 1898.

KOA is still around, but those days are really gone, as are the days of all local radio.  We picked up KOA here over the air, on AM radio, and we listened mostly to AM.  FM doesn't travel far, and the big local station was also AM.  FM started coming on strong for music locally in the late 1970s.  Now, the radio scene is considerably altered, although the biggest local broadcaster, KTWO, remains the biggest local broadcaster.

But now radio must contend with satellite radio, which offers endless variety, just like cable television, and with the Ipod and Iphone, which can store so much music or other broadcast material that it would literally take years for many people to listen to their electronic libraries.  

One of the things XM Radio, one of the satellite channels, has is Old Time Radio, which plays the serial broadcasts of the 1930s through the 1950s.  It's fascinating to listen to, and really serves to remind a person of a completely different era in radio, when it occupied a major part of most Americans daily lives.

 It's hard to imagine how much this was the case now. But radio occupied a central position in the homes that its not only lost, but which is pretty difficult to imagine for most people. Coming in for most right after World War One, and staying up through the 1950s, through music, news and serialized shows, radio offered at that time what the combined Internet and television industries offer today.  And it had a similar impact.  People took their news, and often their views, from radio.

And radio, as "low tech" as it might seem today, was really the pioneer for the home entertainment revolution that would come later.  Prior to radio, which for almost all families was less than a century ago, at the end of a long day, people (well. . . men) went home to a house which only contained the noise that was animated by the lives therein.  Sounds for the most part had a human, or perhaps, animal origin in the immediate sense. For many people, that meant a pretty quiet evening.  If there was music, at that time, it might have been generated by a Victrola, but just as often it might have been played by the folks at home.  An incredible number of people sang and played musical instruments prior to radio, and most particularly prior to television.  But quite a few houses were no doubt mostly silent at night as well, with people reading for entertainment, or playing cards, if only solitaire.

 Fancy radio, probably 1920s.

After World War One, however, the radio was on.  Shows like Cavalcade of America, Dragnet, The Shadow, The Whistler, and  Gunsmoke played ever night on the radio, along with news and music.  People rapidly acclimated to having the radio on in their homes, and even if they still read at night, a lot of time was spent listening, just as later a lot of time was spent watching. Truly, a revolution in people's daily lives.

And a revolution in connectedness as well.  Prior to the radio, evens that happened far away were truly far away.  A person might learn of them rapidly through the newspaper, but still they had a remoteness connected with them, if they were remote.  Radio began to change that.  For the first time disasters and happenings that occurred far away could be learned of nearly immediately.

 

Mayor LaGuardia addresses New Yorkers on the topic of milk.

And for the first time, politicians could campaign nationally, or at least state wide, through a medium that didn't involve the written word nor the whistle stop.

Franklin Roosevelt addresses the nation in 1934.