1. Radio
Chapter 8

2. History of Radio
• 1888: Heinrich Hertz detects and produces radio waves.
• 1899: Marconi establishes first radio link between England and
France.
• 1905: Marconi invents the directional radio antennae.
• 1907: Reginald Fessenden invents a high-frequency electric
generator that produces radio waves with a frequency of 100
kHz.
• 1914: Edwin Armstrong patents a radio receiver circuit with
positive feedback. Part of the amplified high-frequency signal is
fed back to the tuning circuit to enhance selectivity and
sensitivity.

3. History of Radio
• 1919: Shortwave radio is developed. RCA is founded.
• 1920: KDKA broadcasts the first regular licensed radio
broadcast out of Pittsburgh, PA.
• Edward Armstrong patents wide-band frequency modulation (FM
radio).
• 1935: FM radio is born, but only in mono.
• 1938: The FCC sets aside educational/non-profit bandwidth on
FM.

4. History of Radio
• 1945: Television is born. FM is moved from its original home of
42-50 Mhz to 88-108 Mhz to make room for TV.
• 1952: Sony offers a miniature transistor radio. This is one of the
first mass-produced consumer AM/FM radios.
• 1954: The number of radio receivers in the world exceeds the
number of newspapers printed daily.
• 1961: FCC approves FM stereo broadcasting, which spurs FM
development.
• 1962: United States radio stations begin broadcasting in
stereophonic sound.

5. History of Radio
• 1990s, Internet radio begins
• 2002, Satellite Radio is born
• 2004, HD Radio digital signals developed

6. Jobs in radio
• Promotions: responsible for the internal
marketing and promotion of a station.
Interfaces with sales, programming and
production.
• Job duties: organizing live remotes, station
events, usually maintains a station’s website

7. Jobs in radio
• Programming: responsible for the content on
a station. Includes the operations manager,
program director, music director and on-air
personalities
• Interfaces with sales, promotions, traffic and
production

8. Jobs in radio
• Production: responsible for creating
(producing) audio content for a station. This
includes commercials, promos, sweepers and
IDs.
• Interfaces with sales, traffic, promotions and
programming

9. Jobs in radio
• Sales: responsible for selling radio
advertising.
• Interfaces with clients, promotions,
production, traffic and programming
• Usually the highest paid jobs in radio

10. Jobs in radio
• Traffic: responsible for scheduling
commercials for a station
• Interfaces with production, programming,
sales, promotions

11. Radio regulations
• The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is a
government agency that regulates broadcast stations (radio & TV)
• They are gatekeepers: the FCC ensures stations follow content
rules (IDs, obscenity), technical specifications (maintaining proper
transmission settings, maintaining Emergency Alert Systems
(EAS), copyright compliance, and awards (and takes away)
broadcast licenses

12. Important Laws:
• Communications act of 1934: establishes the FCC
• Report on Chain Broadcasting: 1940; led to the breakup of NBC,
which ultimately led to the creation of ABC. This report also
concerned network option time, which means, the report limited
the amount of time during the day, and what times the networks
may broadcast. Previously a network could demand any time it
wanted from an affiliate. Gives more control to network affiliates.
• Telecommunications act of 1996: Deregulation of
communications ownership, allowing companies to increase the
number of acquisitions in any one geographical area. This was
intended to create competition in markets, but in reality, has led
to a few big companies owning the most stations.

13. Radio in the Digital Age
• Terrestrial radio: traditional AM/FM radio stations
• Increased web presence (previously, radio generally
saw the web as a sidebar to radio broadcasts)
• Many big radio companies have expanded their web
presence with the acquistion of internet radio
stations (CBS acquired Last FM and Yahoo! Music
Launchcast Radio
• Very common for stations to offer extra content,
downloadable podcasts, listener reward clubs,
entertainment news and social media links

14. Internet Radio
• Offers opportunity for listeners to get
very specific niche content
• Customizable: Pandora, Slacker.com
• Royalties issue: terrestrial stations must
pay royalties to artists based on
plays/population.
• Copyright Royalty Board (2007)
significantly increased the rates of
internet stations to $0.0011 cent per
song per listener
• July 2009: larger web stations pay a
reduced fee per song/listener, while
smaller webcasters pay a fee based on a
percentage of their total revenue

15. Trends
• Mobile radio: many smartphone
apps to allow radio on the go;
some iPod models come with
an FM tuner
• User-generated content:
listeners can send texts, upload
videos to a station’s website
• Social Media: follow your
favorite on air personalities on
Facebook, Twitter

16. Defining Features of Radio
• Local stations: stations that serve one geographical
area, can be a network affiliate or create all original
programming
• Syndicators and Networks: provide programming
for local stations. Example: On Air with Ryan
Seacrest, Rush Limbaugh, Weekend Top 40
• AM: amplitude modulation (frequencies travel
further)
• FM: frequency modulation (shorter frequencies,
clearer sound)

17. Formats
• The genre of a station’s main content
• Music formats: classic rock, active rock,
alternative rock, country, classic country, CHR
(contemporary hits radio, AKA Top 40), urban,
adult/contemporary (AC)
• Sports formats
• News/Talk
• Religious

18. Format Homogenization
• Many radio stations sound
alike, all across the country
• Attributed to large corporate
ownership and consolidation
of jobs & programming
resources
• What works in one market,
is generally accepted that it
will work in another
• National research, listener
tests, syndicated
programming

19. Commercial Radio &
Copywriting
• Radio commercials are written by a
copywriter
• Copywriters write for the EAR, not the EYE
• Formatted as a script
• Traditional on air advertising is how radio
stations make most of their revenue

20. Non Commercial Radio
• National Public Radio (NPR): national,
syndicated, listener-supported, and
supported by the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting (CPB) a non-profit
organization founded by Congress
• Public Radio International (PBI): acquires
and distributes programming from station-
based, independent and international
producers
• College & Community Radio stations

21. Producing Radio Content
• Music formats: structured to move from one segment to another
• Format Wheel: (fig 7-3 page 167)scheduling aid that organizes a clock
hour for a station
• Scheduling software: computer program that handles creating logs
for radio stations. Can be programmed in a variety of ways to suit
different formats and programming objectives
• Talk formats: use a delay system, features host interactions with
listeners calling in
• News: most difficult to produce, involves coordinating reporters,
anchors, sports/traffic departments, live audio and actualities

22. Feedback
• People Meters and Diaries: used by
tracking companies (Arbitron) to
monitor people’s radio usage and habits
• Information tells stations who is
listening, when they listen and for how
long
• Ratings: the ratio of listeners of a
particular station in relation to all people
in the market
• Share: the ratio of listeners of a
particular station to the total number of
people listening to radio