Who Created Radio?
Since last week was National DJ Day it just seems right to share how music and voices brought up to this point in history. Since I’m a Public Affairs Director I’ve always been curious of the birth of public radio broadcasting. If you Google the history, radio is credited to Lee de Forest. Radio started it’s popularity in 1920 when radio stations were established. Those stations were KDKA in Pittsburgh and WWJ in Detroit. What are all these alphabets about? They’re called Call Letters to represent a designation and identification assigned by FCC. All radio and TV stations have a four-letter identification code. For instance the letters ‘N’ and ‘A’ were given to military stations. The ‘K’ and ‘W’ were assigned out for commercial use. Radio stations east of the Mississippi River had to start their stations with ‘W’, and stations west of the Mississippi with ‘K.
I remember stories from family members about sitting in front of the radio as if were a TV listening to the first presidential inauguration. Back then more than 20 radio stations covered President Calvin Coolidge as he was sworn in. Coming full circle in 2022 Podcasts are taking over the landscape of listening pleasure. As of April 2021, the statistics rose to 850,000 active podcasts with more than 48 million episodes in total. Have you started a Podcast yet? What cha waiting on?