It is difficult to look at radio and its history without giving a nod to money and politics. Technology means change which typically means current winners are about to become tomorrow's wiener's.
According to Radio Wars, the medium begins when Telsa discovers how to modulate electrons so that beeps can be created creating the wireless telegraph. It doesn't take long before this is expanded to reproduce music and human voice.This is done by varying the signal strength of a particular frequency. At first that was AM radio and it was a big hit The established news media of the day, newspaper was not thrilled with this new development. They fought it tooth and nail.
Technology Marches on, and a new form of radio comes along known as FM (Frequency Modulation). It the waves are shorter between the peaks and do not bounce off the upper atmosphere. It is also not prone to static as AM is. Of course, the AM radio industry fights tooth and nail against FM.
Satellites become important in radio as well. Sirius and XM copy the model of pay for (not free) content, freeing the listener from far more than geographical boundaries. Since the content is paid for and controlled, the FCC (Federal Trade Commission) is unable to restrict content (for example vulgarity) < think Howard Stern>.
This did not happen overnight, the FCC fought it tooth and nail. On December 23, 2011 on page B3, in the Wall Street Journal the headline reads: " FCC Aims to Ease Media Rule".
This is because with newspaper readership declining, a corporation's ability to shape public opinion by controlling what is released in a market has been seen as less of an issue.
Historically, the incumbent will always fight tooth and nail against the new technology appearing on the radar. And this excellent movie by the name of Radio Wars: The Historic Battles that Redefined Radio tells the story from beginning to present day. I encourage you to ask your local library to put a copy on their local shelves.
