Birth of public radio broadcasting

Birth of public radio broadcasting is credited to Lee de Forest. A 1907 Lee De Forest company advertisement said,

First public broadcast

Date

On January 13, 1910, the first public radio broadcast was an experimental transmission of a live Metropolitan Opera House performance of several famous opera singers.

Performers

The first public radio broadcast was performances of Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci. Riccardo Martin performed as Turridu, Emmy Destinn as Santuzza, and Enrico Caruso as Canio. This wireless radio transmission event of the Italian tenor Enrico Caruso of a concert from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City is regarded as the birth of public radio broadcasting.

The New York Times reported on January 14, 1910,

Equipment

Receivers

The few radio receivers able to pick up this first-ever "outside broadcast" are those at the De Forest Radio Laboratory, on board ships in New York Harbor, in large hotels on Times Square and at New York city locations where members of the press were stationed at receiving sets. Public receivers with earphones had been set up in several well-advertised locations throughout New York City. There were members of the press stationed at various receiving sets throughout the city and the general public was invited to listen to the broadcast.

The experiment was considered mostly unsuccessful. The microphones of the day were of poor quality and couldn't pick up most of the singing done on stage. Only off-stage singers singing directly into a microphone could be heard clearly. The New York Times reported the next day that static and interference kept the homeless song waves from finding themselves.

Lee De Forest's Radio Telephone Company manufactured and sold the first commercial radios in the demonstration room at the Metropolitan Life Building in New York City for this public event.

Transmitter

The wireless transmitter had 500 watts of power. It is reported that this broadcast was heard 20 km away on a ship at sea. The broadcast was also heard in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Other broadcasts

Early music transmission

• The very first transmission of music by radio is credited to one Dr. Nussbaumer of the University of Graz in 1904, however it was not to the general public. He yodeled an Austrian folk song into an experimental transmitter which was received in the next room at the university where he worked. He does not show in any standard reference works of science.

• Lee De Forest did a program of opera phonograph records from the Eiffel Tower in Paris in 1908. This was just an experimental stunt to other nearby hobbists and not considered a public broadcast. The general public had no access to receivers at the time.

• When testing the radiotelephone for the Navy, Lee de Forest played patriotic phonograph music as the ships entered the harbor.

Notes

Bibliography

• Chase's 2000 Calendar of Events, NTC/Contemporary Publishing Group, Inc. 2000, ISBN 0-8092277-6-2
• Kane, Joseph Nathan, Famous First Facts, Fourth EDition Revised and Expanded, New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1981, ISBN 0-8242066-1-4