Golden Age of Radio

The era when radio was a leading medium for mass entertainment and news, especially from the 1920s through the 1950s.

Radio drama: Dramatic stories written or adapted for performance through sound on radio. Serialized plays and suspense dramas made radio a central home entertainment.
Broadcasting: The one-to-many transmission of audio or video programs to dispersed audiences. Radio’s mass reach depended on broadcasting rather than individual point-to-point messages.
Wireless telegraphy: Communication by transmitting telegraph signals through electromagnetic waves without wires. Radio broadcasting developed from wireless systems built first for coded messages.
War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama): A 1938 CBS radio adaptation of H. G. Wells’s novel, directed and performed by Orson Welles’s Mercury Theatre. Its realistic news-bulletin style became a lasting case study in broadcast credibility.
Television: An electronic medium that transmits moving images and sound to receivers. Television drew audiences and advertising away from radio’s dramatic programming after World War II.
Radio comedy: Comedy written or performed for broadcast on radio. Variety shows and sitcoms drew large audiences before television displaced them.
Radio network: A group of radio stations that distribute programs from shared sources. Networks supplied affiliates with nationally coordinated programs and advertising.
David Sarnoff: An American broadcasting executive who led RCA and helped build NBC. Sarnoff promoted radio as a household entertainment medium and organized national broadcasting.
Franklin D. Roosevelt's fireside chats: A series of radio addresses in which U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke directly to the public. The talks used radio’s intimacy to explain policies and reassure listeners during crises.
Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation: A 1978 United States Supreme Court decision upholding the FCC’s authority to regulate indecent broadcast language. Its broadcast rules reflect regulatory traditions formed during radio’s mass-media era.

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