Editing Golden Age of Radio (section)

=== 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.