MCOM72 Week 5 Flashcards
Telegraph:
precursor of radio technology
Morse code:
series of dots and dashes that stand for letters of the alphabet
Although it was revolutionary, the telegraph had limitations
Unable to transmit the human voice
Ships at sea could not use it to communicate with the rest of the
world
Guglielmo Marconi
Received a patent for wireless telegraphy
—a form of voiceless point-to-point
communication—in England in 1896
Alexander Popov
Made parallel discoveries in Russia; sent
and received wireless messages in May
1895
Nikola Tesla
invented a wireless system in 1892
In 1943, Supreme Court overturned
Marconi’s wireless patent and deemed
Tesla the inventor of radio
Wireless telephony:
wireless voice and music transmission
Broadcasting:
transmission of radio waves to a broad public audience
Wireless Ship Act of 1910
required wireless equipment
on seagoing ships (Titanic had a radio room)
Radio Act of 1912
required stations to be licensed
Radio Corporation of America (RCA):
acquired American Marconi and radio
patents of other U.S. companies
RCA became a monopoly
Chaos
in airwaves was common. With no restrictions on operation, hundreds of stations clog the airwaves in 1926, causing poor reception
Radio Act of 1927:
stated that stations could only license their channels as long as they operated to
serve the “public interest, convenience, or necessity”
Federal Radio Commission (FRC):
created to oversee licenses and negotiate channel problems
Communications Act of 1934:
established the Federal Communications Commission in place of the FRC
FM (frequency modulation) radio
Greater fidelity and clarity than AM radio
Accentuated the pitch, or distance, between radio waves
Surpassed AM radio by the 1980s
AM (amplitude modulation) radio
Stressed the volume, or height, of radio waves
Format radio: formula-driven radio
Management controls programming
Rotation: playing top songs many times during the day
Top 40 format: practice of playing the 40 most popular hits
in a given week as measured by record sales
Creation of the program log and day parts
What are some details of modern day radio
Peak listening time is now drive time
rather than prime time
Stations today are more specialized
Fragmentation trend (with interesting
exceptions)
Pacifica Foundation:
formed to run experimental public stations that often challenge the status quo
First noncommercial networks
Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)
National Public Radio (NPR) established in 1970, and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) are created to provide alternatives to commercial broadcasting
News/talk: radio stations dominated
by news programs or talk shows;
appeals to adults
over age thirty-five
Talk shows in the US are dominated by
right wing hosts
Internet radio
AM or FM stations “stream” versions of on-air signal
New stations are created exclusively for the Internet
Satellite radio:
a subscription-based national service originating with the launch of a series of satellites to cover the continental United
States
XM and Sirius merged to become SiriusXM in 2008
Requires a special radio tuner, though access is available on mobile devices via an app
Podcasting
making audio files available on the Internet for downloading or streaming
Radio advertising
Constitutes 10% of media advertising
Industry revenue has dropped, but number of stations remains stable
Only 20% of budget goes toward programming costs
National networks provide programming for local stations in exchange for time slots for national ads
Payola:
record promoters paying deejays to play particular records
Resurfaced due to streaming radio services
Telecommunications Act of
1996
eliminated most ownership restrictions on
radio
Voice-tracking:
deejays digitally record their “breaks” between songs in advance
Low-power FM (LPFM):
a class of 100-watt stations that give voice to local groups lacking access to the public airwaves
