Editing Golden Age of Radio (section)

== Growth of radio ==
Broadcast radio in the United States underwent a period of rapid change through the decade of the 1920s. Technology advances, better regulation, rapid consumer adoption, and the creation of broadcast networks transformed radio from a consumer curiosity into the mass media powerhouse that defined the Golden Age of Radio.

=== Consumer adoption ===
Through the decade of the 1920s, the purchase of radios by United States homes continued, and accelerated. The [[RCA|Radio Corporation of America (RCA)]] released figures in 1925 stating that 19% of United States homes owned a radio.<ref name=":0">{{cite web|date=1995-08-14|title=Radio: A Consumer Product and a Producer of Consumption (Interactive Historical Introduction, Coolidge-Consumerism Collection)|url=http://lcweb2.loc.gov:8081/ammem/amrlhtml/inmenu.html|publisher=American Memory Help Desk}}</ref> The [[Triode electron tube|triode]] and [[regenerative circuit]] made amplified, vacuum tube radios widely available to consumers by the second half of the 1920s. The advantage was obvious: several people at once in a home could now easily listen to their radio at the same time. In 1930, 40% of the nation's households owned a radio,<ref>{{cite web|date=1933|title=Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930 (Abstract of the Fifteenth Census of the United States)|url=https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/1930radiosets.pdf|publisher=United States Census Bureau}}</ref> a figure that was much higher in suburban and large metropolitan areas.<ref name=":0" /> The [[superheterodyne receiver]] and other inventions refined radios even further in the next decade; even as the [[Great Depression in the United States|Great Depression]] ravaged the country in the 1930s, radio would stay at the center of American life. 83% of American homes would own a radio by 1940.<ref>{{cite web|date=1943|title=Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940 (Housing, Volume II, General Chraracteristics)|url=https://www.census.gov/history/pdf/1940radiosets.pdf|publisher=United States Census Bureau}}</ref>

===Government regulation===
Although radio was well established with United States consumers by the mid-1920s, regulation of the broadcast medium presented its own challenges. Until 1926, broadcast radio power and frequency use was regulated by the U.S. Department of Commerce, until a legal challenge rendered the agency powerless to do so.<ref>{{Cite news|date=1926-07-09|title=Hoover Advised That He Has No Authority Over the Radio Rules|page=2|work=The Herald Statesman|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/60856634/hoover-advised-that-he-has-no-authority/|access-date=2020-10-10}}</ref> Congress responded by enacting the [[Radio Act of 1927]], which included the formation of the [[Federal Radio Commission]] (FRC).

One of the FRC's most important early actions was the adoption of [[General Order 40]],<ref>[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112106763078&view=1up&seq=415 "General Order No. 40 (August 30, 1928)"], ''Radio Service Bulletin'', August 31, 1928, pp. 9–10.</ref> which divided stations on the AM band into three power level categories, which became known as Local, Regional, and Clear Channel, and reorganized station assignments. Based on this plan, effective 3:00&nbsp;a.m. Eastern time on November 11, 1928, most of the country's stations were assigned to new transmitting frequencies.<ref>[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3221814&view=1up&seq=244 "Broadcasting Stations by Wave Lengths, Effective November 11, 1928"], ''Commercial and Government Radio Stations of the United States'' (Edition June 30, 1928), pp. 172–176.</ref>

=== Broadcast networks ===
The final element needed to make the Golden Age of Radio possible focused on the question of distribution: the ability for multiple radio stations to simultaneously broadcast the same content, and this would be solved with the concept of a [[radio network]].<ref>Donald Christensen, "Remember Radio?" July, 2012 http://www.todaysengineer.org/2012/Jul/backscatter.asp {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130127030305/http://www.todaysengineer.org/2012/Jul/backscatter.asp|date=2013-01-27}}</ref> The earliest radio programs of the 1920s were largely unsponsored; radio stations were a service designed to sell radio receivers. In early 1922, [[AT&T Corporation|American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T)]] announced the beginning of advertisement-supported broadcasting on its owned stations, and plans for the development of the first radio network using its telephone lines to transmit the content.<ref name="national">[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112074258994&view=1up&seq=1000 "National Radio Broadcast By Bell System"], ''Science & Invention'', April 1922, pp. 1144, 1173.</ref> In July 1926, AT&T abruptly decided to exit the broadcasting field, and signed an agreement to sell its entire network operations to a group headed by [[Radio Corporation of America|RCA]], which used the assets to form the [[National Broadcasting Company]].<ref>[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89074767211&view=1up&seq=313 "Big Business and Radio"] by Gleason L. Archer, 1939, pp. 275–276.</ref> Four national radio networks had formed by 1934. These were:
* [[NBC Red Network|National Broadcasting Company Red Network]] (NBC Red), launched November 15, 1926. Originally founded as the National Broadcasting Company in late 1926, the company was almost immediately forced to split under [[antitrust]] laws to form NBC Red and NBC Blue. When, in 1942, NBC Blue was sold and renamed the Blue Network, this network would go back to calling itself simply the National Broadcasting Company Radio Network (NBC).
* [[Blue Network|National Broadcasting Company Blue Network]] (NBC Blue); launched January 10, 1927, split from NBC Red. NBC Blue was sold in 1942 and became the Blue Network, and it in turn transferred its assets to a new company, the American Broadcasting Company on June 15, 1945.<ref>{{Cite news|date=1945-06-13|title=Moving Day For Radio Nears|page=10|work=The Birmingham News|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/60877733/moving-day-for-radio-nears/|access-date=2020-10-10}}</ref> That network identified itself as the [[Cumulus Media Networks|American Broadcasting Company Radio Network]] (ABC).
* [[History of CBS#Early radio years|Columbia Broadcasting System]] (CBS), launched September 18, 1927. After an initially struggling attempt to compete with the NBC networks, CBS gained new momentum when [[William S. Paley]] was installed as company president.<ref name="smith">Sally Bedell Smith, ''In All His Glory: the Life and Times of William S. Paley and the Birth of Modern Broadcasting'' (1990){{ISBN?}}</ref>
* [[Mutual Broadcasting System]] (Mutual), launched September 29, 1934. Mutual was initially run as a cooperative in which the flagship stations owned the network, not the other way around as was the case with the other three radio networks.

However, by the end of the Golden Age (around 1950), two other national radio networks were in operation alongside the larger four:
* [[Liberty Broadcasting System]] (Liberty), launched in 1948. Liberty was founded by American radio broadcaster Gordon McLendon, and broadcast live recreations of Major League Baseball games by following the action via Western Union ticker reports.
* [[Progressive Broadcasting System]] (PBS), launched September 4, 1950. PBS's goal was to cater to smaller radio stations that hadn't yet affiliated with NBC, CBS, ABC, or even Mutual or Liberty. It planned to offer programming for 10 hours of the day on member stations.