Back in 1939, as World War II was breaking out in Europe, the National Association of broadcasters (NAB) was having a crucial meeting. FDR was preparing for war, and radio feared government takeover of the radio business. In response, the NAB hired its first full-time president, who helped draft the NAB code of conduct to establish rules for things like products that could not be advertised on the radio, types of programming that were improper, which opponents of FDR’s war could not appear on radio and Lay the foundation for self censorship – that the NAB would make the rules for radio, before the FCC or some technocrat from the FDR administration stepped in.<\/p>\n
But there was another item on the agenda which is kind of curious. It was becoming common for new radios to incorporate pushbutton tuning. In the early 1930s, a company called Motorola made significant ground selling AM radios in cars. States threatened to pass laws banning cars from radios – it was believed they would distract the driver and cause accidents.<\/p>\n
One innovation that started to emerge was the use of Push Buttons – so instead of turning the dial by hand, all the driver needed to do was push a button to change stations, which didn’t even require looking away from the road. <\/p>\n
The agenda item that was being pushed was the smaller independent radio stations wanted push button radios banned. The push button was also being added to console radios used at home. With only 5 buttons, people would assign the “big” radio stations to their buttons, and that just wasn’t fair to the little guys.<\/p>\n
Since The people most active in making and selling radios and running major market stations had significant power in the NAB, no ban was requested.<\/p>\n
To this day, radio owners really underestimate the inertia of push buttons. If you allow Rush Limbaugh to move from WABC to WOR, there is a good chance people will change their normal button to WOR and no longer even be aware your station exists. Or even worse, they press the AM\/FM button, find NPR and never listen to AM again, hurting both stations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Back in 1939, as World War II was breaking out in Europe, the National Association of broadcasters (NAB) was having a crucial meeting. FDR was preparing for war, and radio feared government takeover of the radio business. In response, the … Continue reading