RADIO BROADCASTING

HISTORY OF RADIO BROADCASTING

 DR. LEE DE FOREST,
GENERALLY ACKNOWLEDGED
AS THE “FATHER OF RADIO,”
WAS THE FIRST TO
BROADCAST NEWS IN THE
UNITED STATES IN 1906, DE
FOREST INVENTED THE
VACUUM TUBE THAT MADE
BROADCASTING POSSIBLE.
ITALIAN INVENTOR AND ENGINEER
GUGLIELMO MARCONI
DEVELOPED, DEMONSTRATED AND
MARKETED THE FIRST SUCCESSFUL
LONG-DISTANCE WIRELESS
TELEGRAPH (DOT-AND-DASHED
MESSAGE) AND IN 1901 BROADCAST
THE FIRST TRANSATLANTIC RADIO
SIGNAL.
One person who saw the possibilities of mass
radio broadcasting was David Sarnoff who
started as a Marconi wireless operator. When
the three big communications and electric
companies pooled their patent rights interest
in 1919 and formed what is now known as the
Radio Corporation of America (RCA), he
became RCA’s sparkplug and eventually head
both the RCA and its subsidiary, the National
Broadcasting Company (NBC).
 Dr. Frank Conrad, a Westinghouse
engineer, was the first person to prove
Sarnoff’s original contention that people would
listen to radio. His broadcasts of music in
Pittsburg in 1919 stimulated sales of radio sets
and let Westinghouse to open station KDKA
on November 2, 1920, the first fully licensed
commercial broadcasting station in the United
States. Soon, newspapers in the country
opened their own radio stations.
Philippine Commonwealth President Manuel L. Quezon
speaking into a microphone from radio station KZRM,
which later became DZRB-AM, at his first inauguration
on November 15, 1935.