History of Radio

By Daniel Woodburn

  • First Broadcast of music on the radio

    The first broadcast of music was made during a demonstration on 13 August 1919 by Ernest Fisk (later Sir Ernest) of AWA – Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia). A number of amateurs commenced broadcasting music in 1920 and 1921. Many other amateurs soon followed. 2CM was run by Charles MacLuran who started the station in 1921 with regular Sunday evening broadcasts from the Wentworth Hotel, Sydney. 2CM is often regarded as Australia's first, regular, non-official station.

  • First Radio Station created

    On November 2, 1920, station KDKA made the nation's first commercial broadcast (a term coined by Conrad himself). They chose that date because it was election day, and the power of radio was proven when people could hear the results of the Harding-Cox presidential race before they read about it in the newspaper.

  • Creation of DAB and the first digital radio station

    Digital audio broadcasting (DAB) is a digital radio standard for broadcasting digital audio radio services, used in many countries across Europe, Asia, and the Pacific. The DAB standard was initiated as a European research project in the 1980s. The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) launched the first DAB channel in the world on 1 June 1995 (NRK Klassisk), and the BBC and Swedish Radio (SR) launched their first DAB digital radio broadcasts in September 1995.

  • Most popular radio stations in the UK

    As of the 27 October 2016, the top 10 radio stations are as follows: 1) BBC Radio 2 (15.1m listeners every week)
    2) BBC Radio 4 (11.2m)
    3) BBC Radio 1 (9.9m)
    4) Heart (9.6m)*
    5) Capital FM (8.7m)
    6) BBC Radio 5 live (5.5m)
    7) Smooth (5.4m)*
    8) Classic FM (5.3m)
    9) KISS (4.3m)
    10) Magic (3.4m)