KDKA Becomes The World's First Regular Broadcasting Station 11/2/1920
On This Day - 2nd November 1920
I was looking through my book of historical events when I discovered that it was on this day, the 2nd November 1920, 85 years ago that KDKA in Pittsburgh became the world's first regular broadcasting station.
Westinghouse executives had founded KDKA with the idea that a regular broadcasting station would stimulate the sale of Westinghouse-made radio receivers and on 2nd November 1920 when the presidential election contest between Warren G. Harding and James Cox took place KDKA broadcast the returns which proved by the response of the public the following day to be a resounding success.
*Historically, the important thing was that KDKA did not simply turn off its power and fold up after the election night special, but, as promised, continued its nightly broadcasts on a regular basis. At first the broadcast time was a single hour--8:30 to 9:30 P. M.--but before long the schedule would be expanded.
If KDKA was to be the stimulus that would give birth to an entirely new era in wireless history, the evidence of it was neither immediate nor dramatic. A great radio boom was just around the corner, but it did not come, as one might expect, in the months immediately following KDKA's debut--rather it had to wait until early 1922, over a year after that election-night broadcast of 1920. Between November 2, 1920, and December 31, 1921, only nine additional stations were listed in the Radio Service Bulletin of the Department of Commerce as being licensed for general broadcasting. But in the first few months of 1922 scores of new stations would seek and receive licenses, and the broadcasting idea would then spread like wildfire around the country.
And thank goodness it did!
Happy listening my friends,
*Excerpt from The Early Days of Radio Broadcasting, by George H. Douglas.