To examine the success of the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) 1982 decision not to select a standard transmission system for AM stereophonic broadcasting (instead leaving it to the marketplace), this paper documents and analyzes the first 7 years of the AM stereo marketplace. Following an explanatory introduction, the paper's first…

Municipal ownership and operation of radio stations, an interesting but forgotten variant approach to radio that flourished in the 1920s, is discussed in this paper. Specifically, it examines WPG in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the first and in many ways the most interesting example of municipal ownership of radio. WPG's operations are recounted…

The originators of municipal radio station WNYC foresaw radio as a means of extending city government and an instrument to educate, inform, and entertain the citizens. Because the municipal radio concept emerged in the early 1920s, before the medium's industrial structure was entrenched, an opportunity existed to develop an innovative model of…

This paper explores FM radio's struggle for survival in the 1940s, focusing primarily on the impact of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decision making and on the influence and activities of the well-established radio corporations, primarily the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). It describes the invention of FM radio by Edwin H. Armstrong…

Chronicles the development of public broadcasting from early attempts to develop noncommercial radio through organizations such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Public Broadcasting Service. Discusses the need for federal support and the resulting conflicts. (JMF)

Discusses the creation of national broadcasting services in Nigeria, their conflicting national and regional goals, and the subsequent establishment of rival broadcasting systems by regional governments. (GT)

The development of the television industry in the United States as it emerged in the 1950s is mirrored by tracing the policies and actions of NBC (the National Broadcasting Company) during this period. As the leading radio network and as a subsidiary of RCA (the Radio Corporation of America), NBC was in a uniquely powerful position to direct the…

During the 1920s professional baseball emerged as both a mass sport and a mass media-reported sport. This emergence was accompanied by evolution and change in both radio broadcasting and newspaper sports writing. Live coverage of sporting events, particularly baseball's World Series, provided a part of radio's growth process that affected the…

This analysis of government regulation of America's broadcast service provides: (1) a historical view of radio and television regulation, including the doctrines of scarcity and public trustee and other areas affected by deregulation in particular; (2) an analysis of the argument for deregulation; and (3) an assessment of the First Amendment, the…

The Congressional Research Service prepared this compilation of articles and bibliography to facilitate student research on the regulation of mass media in the United States, the 1979-80 intercollegiate debate topic. The selection of articles reproduced in Section A and the citations chosen for the bibliography in Section B are representative of…

Presents U.S. broadcasting history as the interplay between powerful commercial forces and a broadcast reform movement that opposed commercial control of the industry. Suggests that broadcast reformers developed traditions of media criticism that are useful today. Describes the lack of debate preceding the Communications Act of 1934 as a weak spot…

To gain insight into how critical standards for broadcast drama evolved with time, this paper examines the critical response to the development of broadcast drama in the first two decades of radio (1920-1940), as reported in the periodical press. The paper is based on two underlying assumptions: (1) that the stories a society tells are indicative…

A study focused on how the broadcasting and advertising industries dealt publicly, through the medium of the trade journal, with political pressures shortly after the end of the Second World War. Was blacklisting and the political screening of talent acknowledged in the trade press? If so, did the publications approve or disapprove of the methods…

Radio is a new force which science has placed in the hands of civilization. Its potential uses are so numerous and varied that it has captivated the imagination of the entire civilized world. As a means of diffusing entertainment and information over wide areas, broadcasting has no peer. Steadily it is breaking down the barriers of isolation,…

The American boy, and in some cases his sister, was among the first to discover the possibilities of education by radio. As soon as the newspapers and magazines began to tell of the success of Marconi in sending radio messages from shore to ships and eventually across the Atlantic, boys began to build radio apparatus. In many cases the education…