page_title: Radio in the United States
section_title: Development of radio networks
hierarchical_section_title: Radio in the United States / History / Post–World War I / Development of radio networks
caption_attribution_description: English: The early "broadcast chains" in the US
context_page_description: Radio broadcasting in the United States has been used since the early 1920s to distribute news and entertainment to a national audience. It was the first electronic "mass medium" technology, and its introduction, along with the subsequent development of sound films, ended the print monopoly of mass media. During the Golden Age of Radio it had a major cultural and financial impact on the country. However, the rise of television broadcasting in the 1950s relegated radio to a secondary status, as much of its programming and audience shifted to the new "sight joined with sound" service.
  Originally the term "radio" only included transmissions freely received over-the-air, such as the AM and FM bands, now commonly called "terrestrial radio". However, the term has evolved to more broadly refer to streaming audio services in general, including subscription satellite, and cable and Internet radio.
context_section_description: At the same time in early 1922 that it announced the beginning of advertisement-supported broadcasting, AT&T also introduced its plans for the development of the first radio network. The concept was based on a memo prepared by two company engineers, John F. Bratney and Harley C. Lauderback, who proposed a nationwide "chain" of thirty-eight stations, linked together by the company's telephone lines for simultaneously transmitting commercially sponsored programming.
  The network's primary studios were located at AT&T's WEAF (now WFAN) in New York City, and the network became known as "WEAF chain". Specially prepared broadcast-quality lines had to be used for the station connections, so the network took awhile to be constructed. The first permanent link, between WEAF and WMAF in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, went into service during the summer of 1923. RCA responded by establishing its own smaller network, centered on station WJZ (now WABC), although it was handicapped by having to use inferior telegraph lines to link the stations, due to AT&T's general refusal to supply telephone lines. By the fall of 1926 the WJZ chain had only four core stations, all located in the mid-Atlantic, while WEAF's network reached seventeen cities, stretching from Portland, Maine to Kansas City, Kansas.
  At this point AT&T abruptly decided to exit the broadcasting field, and in July 1926 signed an agreement to sell its entire network operations to a group headed by RCA, which used the assets to form the National Broadcasting Company. Under the new management the WEAF chain became the NBC Red network, while the WJZ chain became the NBC Blue network. The agreement with AT&T gave NBC access to AT&T's long-distance lines for station links, and also allowed the new network to sell advertising.
  The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) began in 1927 as an initially struggling attempt to compete with the NBC networks, which gained new momentum when William S. Paley was installed as company president. Unlike NBC, which initially saw itself as primarily a public service and said its only profit goal was to break even, Paley recognized the potential for a radio network to make significant profits. Surveys and polls were used to determine audience sizes and affluence. Frank Stanton, a later president, worked with Columbia University sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld to develop techniques for measuring audiences.
  For the NBC affiliates, owners typically viewed their stations as the broadcast equivalent of local newspapers, who sold ads to local business and had to pay for NBC's "sustaining" programs that didn't have sponsors. Individual stations bought programming from the network and, thus, were considered the network's clients. Paley changed the business model by providing network programming to affiliate stations at a nominal cost, thereby ensuring the widest possible distribution for both the programming and the advertising. The advertisers then became the network's primary clients and, because of the wider distribution brought by the growing network, Paley was able to charge more for the ad time. Affiliates were required to carry programming offered by the network for part of the broadcast day, receiving a portion of the network's fees from advertising revenue. Paley also eased the standards on what was considered appropriate commercial content, most notedly by allowing a cigar maker to include a shouted "There is no spit in Cremo!" in its advertisements.
caption: The WEAF and WJZ chains
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