Alfred Balk, The Rise of Radio, From Marconi Through the Golden Age

Abstract

Some cultural historians claim that eras of creativity lead to periods of commentary. Innovators like Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes in Athens were followed by critics in Alexandria. Geniuses in the Italian Renaissance gave was to 17th-century annotators, theorists, and academicians. The century from Shakespeare to Milton inspired an 18th-century symbolized by Dr. Johnson’s biographies and dictionary. Whatever the truth of this generate–contemplate pattern, it seems to describe the evolution of radio programs and radio studies. The heady early days of novel shows like Amos ’n’ Andy devolved into today’s all music or talk shows; the desultory thoughts of Golden Age reviewers have expanded into voluminous modern essays on communication laws, networks, sound effects, technologies, performers, and individual series. Thus, Alfred Balk’s The Rise of Radio comfortably belongs in our age of recapitulation. His rationale for yet another study makes sense to those dedicated fans who have dutifully perused specialized volumes on radio tubes, premiums, and soap operas. Feeling the lack of “a readable one-volume narrative that portrayed in journalistic form the sweeping drama of radio history,” (p. 13), the author provides one. His admirably clear prose sums up a dizzying array of previous histories. Balk proceeds chronologically as he retells how pioneers combined with visionaries to create “a belle epoque in American culture” (p. 12). Marconi, Fessenden, de Forest, and Armstrong supplied Hugo Gernsback, “Doc” Herrold, and David Sarnoff with the mechanisms to simultaneously reach listeners almost everywhere with the world’s most comprehensive mix of entertainment and information. When the book continues with the westward migration of talent to Chicago, Cincinnati, and Detroit, a reader both follows and appreciates how the phenomenon grew. The last two sections recount the entrance of advertising agencies and the antagonism of newspapers. Next, the author reviews the individual histories of radio’s myriad genres: comedy, sitcoms, adventure, kids’, women’s, drama, music, news, quiz, and historic shows. The final section becomes elegiac. Switching his method from annalistic to analytical, the author finds much to disturb him in post-World War II developments: network splits, the emergence of television, and, finally, the disappearance of local scheduling. He backs up his claim of “a legacy lost” (p. 282) by spotlighting the negative results of deregulation and current pandering to segmented audiences: infantile or sensational news, lack of hometown or minority ownership, a flood of advertising, loss of any public responsibility, threats to free elections. His emotion inspires rather than weakens his prose. While lamenting the prevalence of current mean-spirited talk/call-in offerings, Balk writes, “Drumfires of demagoguery and demonizing debase the public discourse and, by ignoring or politically deni-