According to popular history, one hundred years ago this Christmas Eve, shipboard technicians listening for Morse code messages on their newly installed wireless telegraphs heard something incredible: music. Men on ships from the North Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico made up the audience of the first successful radio transmission of music and voice. Since that first experimental broadcast, music has been the dominant sound on radio.
This documentary from American RadioWorks explores the history of music on the radio and how it became not only the economic engine of a major American industry but an engine for cultural and political change in American life.
