U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who sponsored the bill in the Senate, described free AM radio as “an essential tool in emergencies, a crucial part of our diverse media ecosystem, and an irreplaceable source for news, weather, sports, and entertainment for tens of millions of listeners.”
As a media historian, I welcome hearing AM radio described as a public utility, particularly after decades of free-market orthodoxy dominating discussions of its fate.
The story of a new medium
When AM – short for “amplitude modulation” – arrived at the turn of the 20th century, it was championed as a revolutionary technology that could bring a nation together in time and space. Over the next decade, engineers developed new technologies such as uniwave arc transmitters to send the signal and vacuum tubes to help amplify it upon reception, so that first voices and then music could be heard over AM broadcasts.
While early radio amateurs harnessed its potential to connect and inform, the era of unlicensed amateur broadcasting ended during World War I due to fears that the new medium might be misused to spread foreign propaganda or divisive content.
After KDKA went on the air in Pittsburgh as the first licensed commercial station in November 1920, AM radio stations popped up across the nation, serving local audiences a wide variety of formats. Houses were now filled with the sounds of news, baseball games, radio dramas or crooners singing popular music. Radios flew off the shelves to meet the demand.
Because listening stokes the imagination in unique ways, broadcasters – and the advertisers that paid to access audiences – found new ways of using radio to capture listeners’ attention.
By the 1930s, AM radio was a dominant form of mass media in America, served by networks of stations – NBC, CBS and Mutual – with both local and syndicated programming. While commercial interests saw radio as a means to generate profit, a growing chorus of advocates viewed radio as a public utility that should be made to serve the public interest.
That public conversation inspired the Communications Act of 1934 and the creation of the Federal Communications Commission, which was charged with ensuring that licensed stations abide by certain standards.
These standards flowed from an ongoing debate at the FCC about the public interest obligations of radio broadcasters. In the late 1930s, the agency started requiring licensed stations to remain neutral in matters of news and politics. The “no-editorializing spirit” of the Mayflower decision compelled the FCC in 1949 to establish its fairness doctrine later that year.
The emerging regulatory oversight helped check America’s first radio demagogue, Father Coughlin, whose conspiratorial tirades were heard by some 30 million listeners. Over the course of several years, Coughlin’s refusal to comply with regulatory guidelines – combined with fear of sponsor backlash – caused him to be dropped by radio networks.
Radio comes along for the ride
The sounds of AM radio started accompanying drivers in their cars in the late 1920s.
The vehicles of that era featured closed cabins that protected drivers and passengers from weather and noise. People who listened to music on their home radios embraced the idea of listening while driving. Companies such as the Automobile Radio Corporation promoted expensive Transitone radios that ran on a 6-volt battery with the tagline, “You’re never alone with a Transitone.”
In 1930, General Motors began installing radios in its new Cadillacs. Chrysler advertised luxury cars factory-wired for owners to install Transitones. Now, drivers traveling on America’s vast and growing national highway systems could do so while listening to the radio.
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