Why does your radio turn off when you turn on your lights?

The radio is a norm throughout the world that is often overlooked, probably due to its common appearance in houses, cars, and stores. With the flick of a switch, people are ab…le to access news, information, and music broadcasts hundreds or thousands of miles away from where they are. Human understanding of the technology that allows radio transmissions to be broadcast, received, and decoded is relatively new and was not originally explored for commercial use.

However, with the popularity of in home radios, commercialism began to find a new way to reach out and find new customer bases. The radio station given the historic nod as being the first to use the radio as a commercial platform was KDKA of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In October of 1920, KDKA received its commercial license and broadcast the November 1920 election results during its inaugural program.

The results were sandwiched between live banjo music and phonographic records. The whole deal was an attempt by Westinghouse, an early leading radio manufacturer, to sell more radios by promoting their importance and their abilities. Also in 1920, 8MK out of Detroit began broadcasting starting in August.

The radio station was founded by newspaper publisher, E.W. Scripps, and followed KDKA by announcing the November election results. 8MK has been renamed WWJ and is still on the air to this day. When commercial radio caught on, it exploded onto the market.

Over 600 radio stations popped up across the United States within four years of KDKA's historic first broadcast. In order to maintain the ability to broadcast and improve transmission equipment, radio stations began to turn to paid advertisements as a way to create revenue. The first radio commercial aired on August 28, 1922, on WEAF based out of New York City.

The advertisement was for the Queensboro Corporation and was a pitch for an apartment complex. This development soon led to entire show sponsorship by advertisers and paid endorsements to celebrity radio broadcasters.As the popularity of radio grew, and as the business became more complex, radio stations began to band together, forming radio networks. These early networks allowed smaller radio stations access to bigger budgets, more equipment, and a wider audience.

Radio Corporation of America, better known as RCA, formed the National Broadcasting Company in 1926 as a way of competing against other radio companies by sharing broadcasting across many radio stations. Radio networking became a successful business model and was emulated by numerous other companies. As the companies grew, the air waves began to become clogged with radio traffic.

At the time, there was little regulation on radio communications. In response, the Federal Radio Commission, later renamed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), was established in 1926 to govern all matters dealing with the regulation of radio. One of the most important advancements for radios was the use of speakers over headsets.

Speakers allowed for a single radio to become the center of attention and conversation to a wider audience. Another great advancement to radio broadcasting was the use of frequency modulation, or FM, radio broadcasting which allowed for less interference than AM stations and much better sound quality. Frequency modulation was first introduced in the 1930s by Edwin Armstrong, but it didn't come into popular use until April of 1961.

The introduction of the transistor radio in 1954 accelerated the interest in radios and catapulted them to the top of the list as one of the most important electronic devices ever manufactured. The use of transistor-based technology allowed for smaller and more portable radio devices to be used, spreading commercial radio out of the home and onto the streets. This expanded the audience of commercial radio stations to a whole new level.

The future of radio technology continues to explore new ways to interact with its audience. Satellite radio has become a popular way of choosing what type of music or programming you want to hear based on preset stations designed around specific genre. Commercial radio stations have also pushed off the harness of radio towers by making their content available on websites.

This allows people to take their favorite radio stations anywhere they go around the world and access them any time they want to. Certain companies have also developed radio stations that you can design yourself or that will learn from choices you make in order to try to develop a station that gives you the music and information you want to hear. New advancements in technology will continue to change the face of commercial radio as it finds new ways to provide entertainment and information.

The development of radio technology is undoubtedly an important advancement in human technological understanding. The radio has provided people with a way to communicate, a way to receive important news, and plenty of entertainment in the way of radio programs and music. It was, no doubt, also an important invention to business and industry, as it provided a new method to pass along the word about great deals and significant investments.

When commercial radio stations first began to play music, there was a need to have some regulation in place on how musicians were to be paid for their music. Following a case involving music being broadcast through a department store that included advertisements during its radio broadcast in 1923, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers gained the right to collect dues for songs played on commercial radio.