Points on the Dial

The 'golden age' of radio is often recalled as a time when the medium unified the nation, as families gathered around the radios in homes across the country to listen to live, commercially sponsored network broadcasts. In "Points on the Dial", Alexander Russo complicates this account of radio as a homogeneous national unifier by revealing how complex and diverse production, distribution, and reception practices actually were during the medium's golden age or network era, from the mid-1920s, when radio stations were first connected by wire networks, until the arrival and popularization of television in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Russo's revisionist radio history brings to light a tiered broadcasting system with intermingling but distinct national, regional, and local programming forms, sponsorship patterns, and methods of program distribution. Regional networks, which increased in number from the 1930s into the 1950s, offered regionally tailored programming to stations with national network affiliations as well as those without them. 'Station representatives', both individuals and organizations, assessed regional audiences and pitched the market value of those audiences to potential sponsors. 'Spot advertising', promotions created for and placed in particular markets, allowed national advertisers to customize their messages for regional audiences, and stations and regional networks to maintain some autonomy in relation to their affiliate national networks. Dependence on network programming was also lessened by sound-on-disc transcriptions (high-quality sound recordings produced solely for radio broadcast) and transcription syndication services. As Americans purchased multiple radios for the home and radios were integrated into cars, listening practices changed. The broadcast system created by station representatives, transcription producers, and regional networks facilitated the development of programming formats geared toward distracted individuals rather than attentive groups.