The Concession Speech

We all know the concession speech: the half-hearted patriotic rhetoric, the fallow optimism, and the trite attempt at closure. The actual wording is moot. They're all the same. But the private concession phone call is more informal, more personal. But both of these are relatively recent contrivances. Prior to the advent of broadcast media, election results bore significant travel time. The candidates were oddly detached from the process. The first known "concession telegram" was sent by William J. Bryan to Mr. William McKinley two days after losing the after the 1896 US presidential election.

Our modern formalized performance art version of contrition can be traced back to 1928.  President Warren G. Harding [R] died in office already  un-electable following the teapot Dome scandal. His vice president Calvin Coolidge [R] completed his term, and one of his own. Then voluntarily elected not to run for a third  term in 1928.  He explained in his memoirs:

"The Presidential office takes a heavy toll of those who occupy it and those who are dear to them. While we should not refuse to spend and be spent in the service of our country, it is hazardous to attempt what we feel is beyond our strength to accomplish."

So in 1928 we had a clean slate, with no incumbent advantage. That year, Democratic New York Governor Al Smith ran for President of the United States against Republican Herbert Hoover. When he lost, he sent Hoover a congratulatory message but also gave a public concession speech on the radio.

But Al's nomination at the Democratic convention had began with radio as well. The DNC was held in Houston, TX that year. But Al was not in Texas. He sat in Albany with his family listening to the convention's  network broadcast each night. This was not a first. The 1924 conventions had also been broadcast. In '24, AT&T wired a convention audio feed to 18 stations and another set of 12 were lit by RCA.  More here. 

Ironically radio was part of the reason Smith lost the election. The microphones of the say were primitive.  These early condenser mics were very sensitive to sound pressure, pitch, and proximity. Smith struggled to restrain his normal and very animated live speaking style. Consequently his voice distorted and faded out often. Hoovers more reserved midwestern delivery came across better on air.  Hoover won and after October 29th 1929 everyone in America lost.

But Al Smith didn't go away. He eventually learned how to properly use those cantankerous old microphones.  After Hoover had proved impotent in the face of economic obstacles (and Prohobition), Smith found new political life in opposing socialism, and communism.

In 1934, Smith joined forces with wealthy business executives who funded the American Liberty League. With their bankroll The League published pamphlets and sponsored radio programs, arguing that the New Deal was destroying personal liberty. It was propaganda, of course. The League printed 135 pamphlets and a monthly newsletter between 1935 and 1936. Smith gave a number of firebrand speeches broadcast nationally in prime time over the CBS radio network. Nonetheless in the depths of the great depression, the choice between hopeless poverty and dogmatic libertarian ideals lacked appeal to the common man. Franklin D.Roosevelt was re-elected in a landslide. The American Liberty league was dissolved in 1940. Smith and Roosevelt later found themselves politically aligned in supporting Americas involvement in WWII.

The Birth Of Radio Regulation pt 3

The Radio Act of 1912 required that all radio transmitters be licensed by federal government and that operators have a license. Seems straight forward enough. Just like a drivers license right? So why did things change? Why does the FCC even exist?

The problem was that the law didn't give the secretary of labor and commerce discretion on whether to issue a license or not. He couldn't refuse them and he couldn't even limit them. That was a teensy oversight in teh drafting of the law. Eventually there were too many radio stations.

It was really coming to a head in the early 1920s. In 1923 Secretary Herbert Hoover (before he was president) refused to grant license to an qualified applicant. Hence Hoover v Intercity Radio Co. went down. The court ruled he had exceeded his authority under the law and ordered him to grant the license.

But he kept it up. the law didn't afford him the authority to limit licenses, but they damn sure needed limited. And some broadcasters supported him. Without some kind of license limits, reception was just destroyed by interference. Hoover continued to act beyond his authority even after the 1923 lawsuit. He regularly issued wave-length assignments and times for broadcast.
http://www.hooverassociation.org/photoscommerce.html

He got suedby Zenith Radio Corp. again that year by WJAZ in Chicago and he lost evvery time beacuse what he was doing was outside the law. Broadcasting fell into chaos. If a staiton didn't like their license limitations... they sued Hoover. And in the end it was decided that he had to give out licenses, and his obligation when there was no available channel, was to license them for the one that caused the least interference... this was not good.

Around 1927 Congress woke up after the post-coital haze of voting themselves a pay raise worse off. Finally Congress acted. They drafted the Radio Act of 1927. It began the Federal Radio Commission. It's powers were broader it assigned wave lengths, assigned hours and at assigned levels of power as Hoover did but also regulated licensing and renewal and to a limited extent programming.

Thsi was the law that asserted that the RF spectrum belongs to the public and that licensed broadcasters merely use this public resource under an obligation to operate "in the public interest, convenience or necessity. " at all times.

It had taken more than a decade. But here was a system that could work. Then less than seven years later in 1934,the FCC was founded. The Federal Communications Act was approved, regulating radio, telephone and telegraph industries under one broadcast media-focused entity, the Federal Communications Commission. That act... was questionable. Like regulating guns, alcohol, explosives and tobacco in one commission. Why the hell do that?
Hoover stayed a popular figure in media. In 1927, the Bell System sent live TV images of Herbert Hoover, still just the Secretary of Commerce, over telephone lines from Washington, D.C. to an auditorium in Manhattan. It was the first public demonstration in the U.S. of long-distance television transmission.

The First Radio Commercial

 During the "broadcasting boom" of 1922, most radio programming was commercial-free. Most stations were amateur, those that weren't were typically used as a promotion platform. It was then, that people began wondering how to pay for all this. Early on "scrambled" broadcasts were even considered to create a subscriber base. [where do we see that now?] In early 1922, AT&T began promoting the controversial idea of using advertising to finance programming. 

"It is inconceivable that we should allow

so great a possibility for service

to be drowned in advertising chatter."

-Herbert Hoover, (1922 then Secretary of Commerce)

 Initially AT&T claimed it had a patent on the idea of radio advertising. They attempted to establish a monopoly over radio advertising. AT&T claimed that 479 of the then 500 radio station in America were violating their "patent." The first test case was a 1924 lawsuit against WHN-AM. In the end everyone just paid AT&T a damn fee.

There was one example prior to this. On the subscription-based wire service Budapest Telefon Hirmondó, which began operation in 1893, received money for reading short commercials. They were 12 seconds long.

It was in 1922 that 660 WEAF-AM was paid to air a ten- minute speech about the Queensborough Corporation, a real-estate concern. It was the first radio commercial. By 1923 WEAF was selling airtime direct to sponsors. Amateur stations immediately began complaining about the commercialization of the airwaves. Actual text here of the ad here:
http://earlyradiohistory.us/1922haw.htm

There if of course some evidence that other stations had previously sold airtime to commercial buyers. These are amateur stations so these are more akin to underwriting.

1. Jersey City, NJ amateur station, 2IA, to the Jersey Review in May, 1920, charging $35 for twice-a-week broadcasts. This station was also reportedly rented out, for $50, to a second newspaper, the Jersey Journal, for a one-hour New Year's broadcast on January 1, 1922.
2. Medford Hillside, MA in 1921 station, 1XE reportedly received money for reading stories from the Little Folk's Magazine and Youth's Companion.