Who invented format radio

Early in , when WNEW was broadcasting the Lindbergh baby trial, Block began spinning records to fill in the periods between broadcasts direct from the courtroom.

Within a few months, this evolved into the "Ballroom" and the name bands of the time were showcased on Block's imaginary revolving stage, 15 minutes at a time. At that time, the show's famous chandelier was as make believe as the ballroom. But the tremendous popularity of the show-- heard twice daily, six days a week--led WNEW to construct a studio in ballroom form with a huge crystal chandelier and a red velvet chair for Block.

Jarvis' program received little attention outside of LA. Programs such as Your Hit Parade a program where studio singers performed the hits of the day, later grew into the "Top 40" format. They catered primarily to adult tastes.

The modern format had not yet developed. Most stations still programmed blocks of music at different times during the day. Depending upon region, you could hear country music, classical music, or adult standards. Big band jazz and piano music were popular in the evening. During this time period announcers played a background role. They were interchangeable and supplemented the program by announcing time and artist.

The addition of other duties: weather forecasts, sports scores, and commercial spot announcements began to allow announcers to display a degree of personality. Recognizing that conventional programming was, at best, unsatisfactory, three young Midwesterners decided to try some different approaches, starting in Milwaukee, Dallas, Omaha, and other secondary markets, Gordon McLendon, Robert "Todd" Storz, and Gerald Bartell began separate experiments that would , by the sixties, completely revolutionize the nature of radio programming Greenfield, p.

Each focused on changing radio from a mass medium to one that served a specific audience. McLendon began playing popular music, and concentrating on local news and weather. In Milwaukee, Bartell, began looking at reports from various pollsters and ratings services. He developed programs on WOKY in response to his findings.

As the story goes, both broadcasters were in their favorite watering hole and observed that patrons poured money into the jukebox to hear essentially the same songs.

It struck Storz and Stewart that basing a playlist on the most popular songs of the moment would attract radio listeners Keith, The programmers tailored KOWH's playlist to reflect their discovery.

Soon the station was at the top of the local ratings. Soon the Top 40 programming approach was tried throughout the country. The Radio Act of solved the problem of broadcasting stations using the same frequency and the more powerful ones drowning out less powerful ones.

This Act also established that radio waves are public property; therefore, radio stations must be licensed by the government. It was decided, however, not to charge stations for the use of this property. One method of imposing speech and music on a continuous wave requires increasing or reducing the amplitude modulating the distance between a radio waves peaks and troughs.

This type of transmission is called amplitude modulation AM. It appears to have first been thought of by John Stone Stone in A significant characteristic of FM as compared with AM is that FM stations using the same frequency do not interfere with each other.

Radios simply pick up whichever FM station is the strongest. This means that low-power FM stations can operate in close proximity. Astute patent dealings were a must in the early radio industry. As was true of the rest of the electric industry, patent litigation was very common in the radio industry.

One reason for the success of Marconi in America was his astute patent dealings. One of the most acrimonious radio patent suits was one between Armstrong and RCA. Armstrong expected to receive royalties on every FM radio set sold and, because FM was selected for the audio portion of TV broadcasting, he also expected royalties on every TV set sold.

Some television manufacturers paid Armstrong. It had more money than Armstrong did, and it could make more money until the case was settled by selling sets utilizing technology Armstrong said was his. It might be able to do this until his patents ran out. By , the financial burden imposed on him forced him to try to settle with RCA.

Not long after he received this offer he committed suicide. Aitken, Hugh G. Princeton, N. Benjamin, Louise Margaret. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, Bilby, Kenneth.

Bittner, John R. Broadcast Law and Regulation. Englewood Cliffs, N. Brown, Robert J. Jefferson, N. Campbell, Robert. New York: Scribner, Douglas, George H. The Early Years of Radio Broadcasting. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, Douglas, Susan J. Inventing American Broadcasting, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, Erickson, Don V.

Fornatale, Peter and Joshua E. Radio in the Television Age. New York: Overlook Press, Godfrey, Donald G. Leigh, editors. Historical Dictionary of American Radio. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, Head, Sydney W. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Hilmes, Michele. Radio Voices: American Broadcasting, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, Jackaway, Gwenyth L. Westport, CT: Praeger, Lewis, Tom. New York: Edward Burlingame Books, Ladd, Jim. New York: St.

Lichty, Lawrence Wilson and Malachi C. New York: Hastings House, Lyons, Eugene. The radio boom began, as people found it indispensable for receiving news and entertainment programs. In the boom of the s, people rushed to buy radios, and business and social structures adapted to the new medium. Universities began to offer radio-based courses; churches began broadcasting their services; newspapers created tie-ins with radio broadcasts. As with television in later years, however, entertainment came to rule the radio waves much more than governmental or educational content, as commercial sponsors wanted the airtime they paid for to have large audiences.

Most listeners enjoyed hearing their favorite music, variety programs that included comic routines and live bands, and serial comedies and dramas. Broadcasts of major sports events became popular as the medium matured and remote broadcasts became possible. Radio was a key lifeline of information for the masses in the years of World War II. About the same time, the recording industry had discovered that teenagers had disposable income and that radio was their best vehicle for promoting their products into million-sellers.

In the late 60s another significant factor in the adoption of formats was the development of FM. As applications for new FM stations flooded in, the CRTC deemed it necessary to create a list of definitions and conditions designed to perpetuate the reasoning and policies of previous regulators, that in any given community served by more than one station that the public would be assured of receiving a variety of music from perhaps two or more stations.

As the new millennium approached, the development of precise audience measurement methods had combined with changing audience tastes to drive the fragmentation of radio formats designed to reach very specific target groups on many stations. Before, where the programming of most stations could best be described as "varied" or "general", and later "teen" or "adult", the variations of these themes had become almost impossible to categorize.

In fact, many stations and their programming consultants resisted being categorized specifically with a labeled format, and preferred to distinguish their unique identity by inventing their own "slogan". Listing of Radio Formats and their Descriptions. Skip to main content.

The Evolution of Format Radio The term "Format Radio" was not introduced to radio jargon until the early 50s when evolutionary changes in broadcasting began to occur.

And so was born Format Radio in Canada.