Important
Dates in the History of Electronic Media
History of
Radio
1901 Marconi sends “wireless” signals across the Atlantic
Ocean.
1919 Radio Corporation of America (RCA) founded.
1920 Westinghouse obtains a license for KDKA, Pittsburgh,
the first radio
station to offer continuous, regularly scheduled
programs.
1922 WEAF, New York, begins selling air-time to
advertisers, opening
the door for advertiser-supported electronic media.
1926 AT&T sells out its radio interest; NBC eventually
gains control.
1927 The Radio Act of l927 is passed, and the Federal Radio
Commission
(FRC) is established.
1931 The FRC refuses to renew the license of KFKB in
Milford, Kansas,
citing dishonest programming as the reason.
1933 Edwin Armstrong, the father of FM radio, applies for
patents for
frequency modulation (FM), and a new kind of radio
service is born.
1934 The Communications Act of l934 includes provisions for
a new
seven-member Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
to
regulate radio, television, and telephone
communication.
1938 Orson Welles fictional “War of the Worlds” causes
panic among
thousands of radio listeners.
1939 First FM station goes on the air in New Jersey.
1940 A federal court of appeals rules that records
purchased by radio stations
may be played on the air with no prior consent from
record companies
or artists.
1943 NBC is forced to sell its second
(radio) network, which becomes ABC.
1945 The FCC supports the development of television, to the
detriment of FM radio.
1948 Radio’s biggest earnings come this year; Television
gets the largest
share of advertising revenues after 1948.
1951 Hundreds of radio stations switch to the deejay format
to make up for loses as revenues from network programming declines.
1959 Radio deejays admit taking money to play certain
records. This is called the “payola scandal.”
1968 ABC radio pioneers creation of multiple networks with
news, information,
and entertainment designed for specialized audiences.
1972 All-news formats appear.
1981 MTV (Music Television) is
lauanched by Warner Comm. (eventually
purchased by Viacom)
1982 AM stations move to talk formats as FM dominates music
programming.
1986 Seventy percent of all radio listeners are tuned to
FM. In l973, the AM band had 70% of the
listeners.
1907 The word television is first used in Scientific
American.
1923 Vladimir Zworykin invents the iconoscope tube.
1927 Philo Farnsworth applies for his first TV patent on
the image dissector tube. He broadcasts
the first TV image (of a dollar sign).
1936 Regularly scheduled TV begins in Great Britain.
1939 RCA demonstrates television at the New York World’s
Fair.
1944 Sponsors begin to buy TV time.
1951 Movie attendance begins to decline in cities that have
TV stations.
1951 NBC’s Today show begins
1954 The Army-McCarthy hearings are shown on TV; The Dean
of TV news, Edward R. Murrow confronts Senator McCarthy on his See It Now show.
1955 The $64,000 Question is the first big-money TV quiz
show.
1956 The presidential campaign between Eisenhower and
Stevenson ibecomes the first television campaign.
1959 Westerns, including Gunsmoke, Have Gun, Will Travel,
The Rifleman, Maverick, and (Monmouth’s own) Wyatt Earp dominate the ratings.
1959 Quiz-show scandals.
TV networks take control of programming. Sponsors have less say.
1960 Nixon-Kennedy debate is the first Great Debate on TV.
196l FCC Chairman Newton Minor describes TV as a “vast
wasteland.”
1962 The Beverly Hillbillies is the top show.
1966 FCC assumes control over cable television in a
precedent-setting decision.
1968 Viewer protests bring back the original Star Trek
series back for a
third season.
1969 CBS cancels The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, because
it was too political, too controversial.
1969 TV covers the first moon landing live.
1973 Televised hearings of the US Senate Watergate hearings
dominate summer TV broadcasting.
1975 Ninety percent of all prime-time viewers are tuned in
to CBS (#1), NBC (#2), or ABC (#3).
1976 HBO becomes the first satellite network.
1977 Roots, the eight-part ABC made-for-TV movie, becomes
the most
watched mini-series of all time. Its success prompts dozens of multiple-part
specials to compete with regular weekly shows.
1980 An episode Dallas becomes the most-watched series
installment ever
with a 53.3 Nielsen rating and a 76% share of the
audience. Everyone
wants to know who shot J.R.
1984 FCC votes to deregulate television along the lines of
the l98l deregulation of radio.
1985-l986 The Fox network goes on the air. ABC and NBC are sold.
1987 At $l.3 million per episode, Star Trek: The Next
Generation premieres as
the most expensive ever first-run syndicated program
ever.
199l CNN becomes the US top TV news source for its
around-the-clock Gulf War coverage.
Viewer awareness of CNN in Europe goes from l5% to 80% during the war.
History of Film
1839 Frenchman, Louis Daguerre invents a workable system of
still photography.
1888 Thomas Edison and assistant William Dickson develop
the first workable motion picture camera.
1903 Edwin S. Porter makes The Great Train Robbery,
1922 Technicolor is introduced.
1927 The Jazz Singer is the first Atalkie@.
1939 Gone With the Wind wins “Best Picture,”
sweeping the Oscars.
194l Citizen Kane, widely called the greatest
American film, opens.
1946
The movie industry’s biggest box office year; 90 million Americans
attend.
1947 Growing out of fear of Communist influence in American
life, the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) seeks out “Communists”
in Hollywood. The Hollywood Ten are
blacklisted and can’t work in the movie industry for years.
1977 Star Wars sets new box office record, surpasses
Jaws.
1982
E.T. is released, becomes all-time box office champ. [ Click here for
current list of all-time box-office record receipts. ]
1989 Sony
Corp buys Columbia Pictures
1990s Although opposed by the movie
industry in the 1970s, VCR tapes of movies become a key form of revenue
sometimes earning more than the box office for a film.
last updated 2/16/2001