In 1916, David Sarnoff had outlined his proposal for a radio music box that would receive news and entertainment delivered by radio and bring it into every living room and parlor in America.

The idea was dismissed as hairbrained at the time, but by 1920, after Westinghouse had demonstrated how popular radio could be,

David Sarnoff was suddenly the man of the hour.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

Music history of the Air.

We pick up today, where we left off last week.

In 1916, David Sarnoff had written a memorandum for his employers at Marconi Wireless

explaining his concept of the radio music box.

Few took it seriously at the time.

Then America went to war, and the radio business went with it.

After the armistice in 1919, the U.S. Navy began cajoling the American subsidiary of Marconi

wireless and a few American electronics firms that held useful patents to pool those patents and

create a new American corporation to exploit the potential of radio.

This corporation was named the Radio Corporation of America, known universally as RCA.

In early 1920, while the creation of RCA was still being negotiated,

David Sarnoff met with Owen Young, the general manager of General Electric.

Remember that at this time, most people still saw radio as primarily a medium for two-way communication,

as in a wireless telegraph or wireless telephone. Sarnoff pitched the idea of a radio receiver as a new

home entertainment product, like a piano or a phonograph, one that could bring in music, news,

and other entertainment into every home. In particular, he noted, people living in rural or

isolated locations could listen live to concerts and

lectures from the big city. Sarnoff believed that a practical consumer radio could be designed

...