Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mike Hansgen (K8RAT), who shares the following “Modern Marvels” documentary on the history of radio:
https://youtu.be/myVGKUui55M
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Thank you for sharing this video. A century of radio broadcast from it birth to it agony. 21st century see the start of radio declining with lot of medium and long wave station abort and FM program standardization. If radio wave will be long time in use for utility, mass diffusion will give way for custom program picked here and there on internet support. At the beginning radio talk to the greatest number of people, today radio talk to age class or community. What will it be tomorrow? I don’t know, i’ll stay tuned as long as i can hear something on my receiver.
With my apologize cause English isn’t my native language, thank you for this wonderful blog.
What a great documentary. Thanks for posting. While I wasn’t around for the Golden Age of Radio, I still got a few smiles from remembering my parents talking about things they’d heard, like the infamous War of the Worlds broadcast.
Toward the end though, the speculations about where radio would go next were both interesting and poignant. Made around 1996 (judging from the header on one of the Arbitron print-outs), the speculations missed out on the three big trends that would follow: consolidation, automation, and homogenization. Especially in the wake of this week’s bankruptcy of iHeartMedia, this question is still out there flapping in the aether.
Where does broadcasting go next, be it SW, VHF, or MW? I don’t know, but it is too great a medium to be abandoned to religious screamers, oldies robo-players, and propaganda for fading dictatorships. But I feel that broadcast radio is close to bottom, and the first bright person to come along with a new and viable business model will make a mint.
I started watching this video and discovered it is rudely and abruptly interrupted by commercials added by YouTube. Verrrrrry annoying. I did a search and found another posting of the video without commercials. Oddly it is many minutes longer than the one at your URL. That’s because the commercial free version starts over at the end of the video! Strange, but not a problem, as the first viewing without commercial interruption is enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_RQg3l1mts
Enjoy, Ron.