WWI - Navy Control

Postwar - Private Hands

Marconi - General Electric - RCA (David Sarnoff)

RCA - GE (25%), - Westinghouse (20%), - AT&T (4%)

GE/Westinghouse - manufacture

RCA - sales

AT&T - make/sell transmitters

Birth of radio - Conrad, Pittsburgh, Hornes & Westinghouse

Nov 2 1920 – KDKA

20 radio transmission licences in 1920

200 in 1922

Nearly 600 by 1923

Westinghouse/GE/RCA - "Radio Group Station". (WJZ)

AT&T/Western Electric – "Telephone Group Station" (WEAF)

1926 – AT&T left market

Westinghouse/GE/RCA creates NBC – Blue and Red networks

First competition CBS (William Paley)

Post 1927 – advertising becomes increasingly important – sponsoring/producing programmes

1930s - networks dominant force in US broadcasting.

1938 - 40% of the 660 radio stations affiliated to NBC or CBS - 98% of total nihttime wattage

Mutual Broadcasting System. - "Chain Broadcasting Investigation"

1943 - NBC sells Blue. Becomes ABC

Television - "naturally" run by networks

TV initially slow to develop in US – some doubt over standards

1941 FCC adopts National Television Systems Committee (NTSC) standards

1947 FCC reaffirms standards

1948 – Stations increase from 17 to 48,

Cities served from 8 to 23,

Sales surpass 1947 by 500%,

’47 audience grows by 4000

1948 - 1952: "The Freeze"

1952 – FCC Sixth Report and Order - makes 2053 allotments in 1,291 communities

NBC - to 1955

CBS - 1955 - 1976

ABC - 1976 (Fred Silverman)

1987 - Fox

1995 - UPN (United Paramount Network)

1995 - WB (Warner Brothers)

Syndication: "any programme sold, licenced, distributed, or offered to television stations licenses in more than one market for non-network television broadcast exhibition.

Off-network syndication

First-run syndication

Financial interest -syndication rules (finsyn)

Syndicated shows usually "stripped"- Therefore need for many (130 plus) episodes

Creates demand for first run syndicated shows.

18-18-12 rule (FM/AM/TV)