How America adopted radio: demographic differences in set ownership reported in the 1930-1950 U.S. censuses.

The Radio Act of 1927 established the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) and gave the new body a mandate to address the interference problem, within two years, the FRC had established and begun to enforce new rules regarding frequency and power. Some stations were forced off the air while many others were reassigned to new frequencies or restricted to daytime-only operation. Certain frequencies were set aside as "clear channels" to improve long-distance service. By the early 1930s, reliable radio reception was taken for granted in large urban areas and interference-free nighttime coverage of many rural regions had been improved. (19)

Yet geographic differences in consumer income also played an important part in determining radio coverage. Broadcasting evolved as a largely commercial enterprise with advertising eventually emerging as the primary source of revenue. For this reason, early stations tended to be clustered around larger cities, especially those of the prosperous Northern and Western states. Concern in Congress that radio was becoming geographically concentrated led to the 1928 Davis Amendment, legislation that required the FRC to allocate transmission facilities equally among five geographic zones.

Although Zones 1 through 4 had approximately equal populations, economics mandated that they did not have equal radio coverage. (20) The FRC reported that in July, 1927, the Southern states of Zone 3 had 97 radio stations, with an aggregate power of only 44,080 watts. This was the least of the five zones, and less than a third of the aggregate power of the 203 stations in the Midwestern states of Zone 4. Illinois alone had 63 stations with an aggregate power of 69,470 watts (U.S. Federal Radio Commission, 1928, pp. 64-65).

In response to the requirements of the Davis Amendment, the FRC established a quota system based on the number of stations and their power in each zone. During the early 1930s, new license allocations were controlled by this quota system to encourage the growth of stations in the less prosperous regions. Yet demand for new station licenses in the impoverished South remained relatively weak and the Commission was never able to achieve parity among the zones. The Davis Amendment was finally repealed by Congress in 1936 (Sterling & Kittross, 2002, p. 170).

Radio coverage remained unreliable in some areas for several years. In 1937, the Commission estimated that only 62% of the area of the continental United States had effective radio coverage during the day and 43% had it at night. However, when examined from the perspective of population, the FCC reported that 92% of Americans could receive a usable radio signal during the day and 83% at night (U.S. Federal Communications Commission, 1940, p. 178). In short, urban dwellers, especially those in the North and West, were more likely to be able to receive strong local radio signals while rural families, especially those in the South had less reliable service, even when they could afford to purchase a receiver.

The Added Complexity of Rural Radio

Rogers (1995) suggests that another factor in the rate of adoption is complexity--"the degree to which an innovation is perceived as relatively difficult to understand and use" (p. 242). For those who lived in rural areas, the complexity of owning a radio set was increased by two major problems. First, rural homes generally required a more sensitive and selective receiver along with a lengthy outdoor antenna to pull in stations. Even then, reception could be limited and electrical storms could wipe out signals altogether. Second, electric lines had yet to be run to most rural areas and listeners had to rely on batteries and/or generators to power their sets. While 85% of urban households had electric service by 1930, only 10% of farm households did, and it would not be until the mid-1940s that even half of U.S. farm households were electrified (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975, Pt. 2, p. 827).

Keeping batteries charged or continually purchasing replacements added greatly to the difficulty and cost of radio ownership. Oral histories reported by Podber (2001) suggest that worries over conserving battery power even changed the way rural families listened to radio, making it a more structured and scheduled activity. Radio set makers responded to the rural market through the sale of specially-designed "farm radios," which began to appear in the early 1930s. By the end of that decade, low-voltage tubes had been introduced that greatly reduced battery consumption, but powering the radio remained a concern for many rural families. (21)

Relative Trialability and Observability

Two additional factors in determining innovation adoption rates are trialability--defined by Rogers (1995) as "the degree to which an innovation may be experimented with on a limited basis" (p. 243)--and observability--"the degree to which the results of an innovation are visible to others" (p. 244). Most rural families had fewer occasions than their urban counterparts to visit stores and witness radio demonstrations and sales presentations. They also tended to live farther from their neighbors and so were less likely to see and hear sets in operation. Yet, only the most isolated families did not have at least some opportunity to see and hear about radio. Many rural families received magazines and newspapers through the mail and these were filled with articles and ads concerning radio. From an early date, agricultural publications featured radio columns and advertising. The mail order catalogs of companies such as Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward offered a wide variety of radio sets and parts on the installment plan (Craig, 2001). When a rural family did purchase a set, neighbors were frequently invited over to listen, and special programs were sometimes cause for a community gathering (Barfield, 1996; Podber, 2001). In addition, both federal and state agricultural bureaus made major efforts to encourage radio use among rural families and provided programming geared to aiding farm business, including market reports, weather forecasts, and agricultural how-to features (Craig, 2001). Although urban dwellers did have somewhat more opportunity to try out and observe radio sets, it is doubtful that this was a major differentiating factor in adoption rates.

Attractiveness of Radio Programs

The whole point of purchasing a radio receiver was to gain access to the ever-growing schedule of programs. As the 1930s progressed, the quality of radio programming steadily improved. The expansion of the networks and the growth of radio advertising meant the medium attracted better writers, bigger stars, and a wider variety of shows. Research on radio audiences of the time contains ample evidence of radio's positive impact on listerners' lives (e.g., Cantril & Allport, 1935; Riney-Kehrberg, 1998; U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1946). But if the programs were the ultimate reason for buying a radio, it is unclear to what degree the programs themselves can explain differences in the rates of adoption.

Hilmes (1997) argues that early radio programming helped bring about a national American identity by enabling a diverse and widespread population to share common cultural experiences simultaneously, thus creating and reinforcing the notion of America as a single community. The data in Tables 2 and 3 could be interpreted to support the notion that White families whose head of household had at least one foreign-born parent adopted radio earlier than native-parentage Whites because radio programs helped them find their place in the emerging national community.

But economics was also a significant factor. Immigrant families of this period tended to settle in urban areas where economic opportunities were better and family incomes were generally higher. This may well account for some of the difference. (22) Yet, as Table 3 shows, the pattern remains consistent when only urban areas are considered. In all but one city listed, White families whose head of household had at least one foreign-born parent were more likely to own a radio than any other group.

Throughout this period, radio programs excluded most African American performers and almost universally portrayed African American characters in the same negative stereotypes found in contemporary minstrel and vaudeville shows (Hilmes, 2001). Smulyan (1994, p. 25) suggests that such White-dominated programming held little attraction for African American listeners and actually deterred them from buying radios. However, the findings of this study support the idea that slower radio adoption by African Americans was rooted mainly in the group's widespread poverty. A majority of the nation's African American population lived in the South, many in rural areas. These factors combined with institutionalized racism to make Southern African Americans the poorest of the poor. As Table 3 shows, Negroes who were living in New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles in 1930 had rates of adoption that were actually higher than those of the White, native-born, native-parentage families who lived in the Southern cities of Atlanta and New Orleans. Once African Americans escaped the South's abject poverty, they bought radios at a rate not far behind that of Whites. This suggests that the reason African Americans were less likely to own radios had more to do with lower family incomes than with objections to racist programming. (23)

Conclusion

The coming of radio to American homes was a process that spanned three decades. While it may be true that families living in urban areas of the North and West rushed out to buy early sets, many of America's poorer families had to wait far longer. Tough economic times played a major role in slowing the spread of radio, and many Americans on the lower economic rungs were without receivers until well into the 1940s. At the same time, capitalist economics determined that the strongest radio stations were located primarily in the more prosperous regions of the country where entrepreneurs and advertisers could efficiently reach consumers with more income. Although regulators attempted to address this imbalance, radio coverage in some places remained spotty for years.

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