Radio industry and its evolution

The industry of radio, as any other media we have today, has gone through a sequence of change since the early 1920’s. In the beginning one could think of it as a “family-gatherer” while today we can listen to it individually everywhere we go. Nonetheless, I think the role that the government played during the first decades of this medium was vital and it significantly helped shape the radio industry.

Government intervention has always been a controversial subject regardless of what it is they are intervening in. However, there was a scenario in which the government knew when it was the right moment to step in and when it was to step out. Most people recognized that it was a necessary action and appreciated the fact that the government left the radio industry the same or better than how they found it.

This outstanding example of which I’m speaking of is the government intervention in the radio industry during the World War I. The government realized that they were going to be needing radio in order to have better communication. They expropriated it from the private companies and once the war was over they gave it back to them and mandated U.S. ownership, so the British had to leave the industry. This is how the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was born. This is why, in my opinion, the government’s intervention was vital in the radio’s evolution process.