Live radio

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Live radio is radio broadcast without delay. Before the days of television, audiences listened to live dramas, comedies, quiz shows and concerts on the radio much the same way that they now do on television. Most talk radio is live radio where people can speak (anonymously) about their opinions and lives. Live radio is sound transmitted by radio waves, as the sound happens. Modern live radio is probably most used to broadcast sports but it is also used to transmit local news and traffic updates. Most radio that we listen to today is recorded music, and the days of solely live broadcast music are generally not as present.

Contents

Beginnings

Live recording of the ITMA comedy radio show in England, 1945 The Laugh!- the Recording of the Radio Comedy 'itma', London, England, UK, 1945 D24420.jpg
Live recording of the ITMA comedy radio show in England, 1945

According to Encyclopædia Britannica, the first transmission sent over radio waves were voice and music signals transmitted in December 1906 from Brant Rock, Massachusetts. Canadian experimenter Reginald Fessenden produced approximately an hour of talk and music that was heard by radio amateurs before radio's popularity exploded. Other experiments in radio before it became part of widespread culture were transmitted including those by Charles Herrold in San Jose, California in 1908. [1]

Radio hobbyists continued to experiment, and popularity grew during the decade before World War I, a time before loudspeakers, where listeners would “listen in” with headphones. The first instrument used to access radio signals were crystal sets which used a tiny piece of galena (lead sulfide) called a “cat's whisker” to detect signals. The challenge with these sets were tuning into specific stations, though they were inexpensive and easy to make. These devices would have more than likely became more widespread, but in 1917 federal government placed restrictions on radio transmissions. [1]

After the war, in the years 1920 to 1945 radio became the first electronic mass medium by using radio waves to broadcast to a vast audience. In its early years radio introduced the masses to immediate news and entertainment. In 1920–1921 about 30 radio stations took to the air, mostly developed from amateur operations. In 1921, the first live sporting event aired—a boxing match with play-by-play by reporter Florent Gibson. In 1922, over 550 new stations began to fill the available frequencies though many disappeared because they couldn't afford the costs of operation. Radio stations had simplistic studios composed of walls covered in burlap for sound proofing, a microphone, and occasionally a piano to fill interludes. Everything on air was live, because in these early years recordings were such poor quality. [1]

Political integration

According to the United States House of Representatives archives, congress was slow to embrace radio technology. Up until the 1930s radio reporters were denied recording access during congressional proceedings.  The first attempt to transmit radio from the Capitol was in January 1921 during the inaugural address of President Warren G. Harding, but it was unsuccessful. In 1922, President Harding successfully delivered an Annual Address that was broadcast via radio on the public address system and a house debate about tax-exempt securities became the first ever congressional proceeding to be broadcast. The resistance between congress and radio broadcasting companies continued over the next couple of years. Broadcasters were banned, secretly planting microphones to listen in on proceedings, until March 1939 more than 400 radio stations broadcast the 150th anniversary of the first session of Congress using microphones in the House Chamber. Finally, September 1944, Representative John Coffee introduced H.J. Res. 311 which called for live radio broadcasts of all House proceedings. [2] In this way, radio kept the nation informed and connected in the goings on in politics.

Golden age of radio

The radio era, known as “the shortest golden age in history” lasted from 1930 to 1955. Radio during the Golden Age began to fully develop programs with sound effects, music, dialogue, and narration. Some voice actors would play multiple characters in a story performed live on the air, and some radio shows were performed in front of a live audience. This allowed the show to gauge real audience reaction like applause and laughter for comedy shows. Programming during the Golden Age included comedies, dramas, westerns, horror and suspense shows, science fiction, soap operas, sports, and news. [1]

Big players

In the heyday of radio, NBC and CBS built their empire using the mass media and emphasising the value of liveness. These companies and supporters of the "American system of broadcasting" defined radio as "commercial, national, live, and network on economic, technological, aesthetic and legislative levels." As of 1929, NBC announced its pride and superiority among radio program companies stating that live broadcast was superior to recorded programs. Live broadcast brought about a sense of spontaneity and immediacy, and in cases of live music intimacy as you hear the artist as you would live in concert. NBC asserted that the imperfections of live radio added to its authenticity and the pleasure of listening. [3]

As popularity of radio grew, networks found that listeners preferred transcription programs recorded on discs more than locally produced live shows. The end of 1930 marked the beginning of the Golden Age of Radio, but also marked the end of many live broadcasting content. At this time, Variety estimated that 75 per cent of radio stations used transcriptions. RCA was a major player in manufacturing transcriptions as live radio eventually dissipated, as even NBC who took pride in their live aesthetic caved to broadcasting sound from transcriptions. [3]

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Broadcasting Distribution of audio or audiovisual content to dispersed audiences

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History of broadcasting Aspect of history

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 and James Clerk Maxwell.

BBC Radio Cambridgeshire Radio station in Cambridge

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BBC Radio Leeds Radio station in Leeds

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Shortwave listening Hobby of listening to shortwave radio broadcasts located on frequencies between 1700 kHz and 30 MHz

Shortwave listening, or SWLing, is the hobby of listening to shortwave radio broadcasts located on frequencies between 1700 kHz and 30 MHz. Listeners range from casual users seeking international news and entertainment programming, to hobbyists immersed in the technical aspects of radio reception and collecting official confirmations that document their reception of distant broadcasts (DXing). In some developing countries, shortwave listening enables remote communities to obtain regional programming traditionally provided by local medium wave AM broadcasters. In 2002, the number of households that were capable of shortwave listening was estimated to be in the hundreds of millions.

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Stereophonic sound Method of sound reproduction using two audio channels

Stereophonic sound or, more commonly, stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration of two loudspeakers in such a way as to create the impression of sound heard from various directions, as in natural hearing.

Radio broadcasting in the United States has been used since the early 1920s to distribute news and entertainment to a national audience. By 1931, a majority of U.S. households owned at least one radio receiver. It was the first electronic "mass medium" technology, and its introduction, along with the subsequent development of sound films, ended the print monopoly of mass media. During the Golden Age of Radio it had a major cultural and financial impact on the country. However, the rise of television broadcasting in the 1950s relegated radio to a secondary status, as much of its programming and audience shifted to the new "sight joined with sound" service.

FM broadcasting Transmission of audio through frequency modulation

FM broadcasting is a method of radio broadcasting using frequency modulation (FM). Invented in 1933 by American engineer Edwin Armstrong, wide-band FM is used worldwide to provide high fidelity sound over broadcast radio. FM broadcasting is capable of higher fidelity—that is, more accurate reproduction of the original program sound—than other broadcasting technologies, such as AM broadcasting. It is also less susceptible to common forms of interference, reducing static and popping sounds often heard on AM. Therefore, FM is used for most broadcasts of music or general audio. FM radio stations use the very high frequency range of radio frequencies.

Apex radio stations was the name commonly given to a short-lived group of United States broadcasting stations, which were used to evaluate transmitting on frequencies that were much higher than the ones used by standard amplitude modulation (AM) and shortwave stations. Their name came from the tall height of their transmitter antennas, which were needed because coverage was primarily limited to local line-of-sight distances. These stations were assigned to what at the time were described as "ultra-high shortwave" frequencies, between roughly 25 and 44 MHz. They employed amplitude modulation (AM) transmissions, although in most cases using a wider bandwidth than standard broadcast band AM stations, in order to provide high fidelity sound with less static and distortion.

Birth of public radio broadcasting First radio broadcast (January 13, 1910; New York City)

The birth of public radio broadcasting is credited to Lee de Forest who transmitted the world’s first public broadcast in New York City on January 13, 1910. This broadcast featured the voices of Enrico Caruso and other Metropolitan Opera stars. Members of the public and the press used earphones to listen to the broadcast in several locations throughout the city. This marked the beginning of what would become nearly universal wireless radio communication.

Electrical transcription

Electrical transcriptions are special phonograph recordings made exclusively for radio broadcasting, which were widely used during the "Golden Age of Radio". They provided material—from station-identification jingles and commercials to full-length programs—for use by local stations, which were affiliates of one of the radio networks.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "radio | Definition, History, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 26 November 2018.
  2. ↑ "Radio and Congress:Connecting the House to the Home | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives" . Retrieved 26 November 2018.
  3. 1 2 Russo, Alexander (2004). "Defensive Transcriptions: Radio Networks, Sound-on-Disc Recording, and the Meaning of Live Broadcasting". The Velvet Light Trap. 54 (1): 4–17. doi:10.1353/vlt.2004.0018. ISSN   1542-4251.
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