Blog Prompt #3

If the radio industry in the 1920s had not tuned into Audience Demand, the success that the radio had would not have been as ground-breaking and explosive as it was. 

Audience Demand successfully influenced the formation of the radio industry in the early 1920s. When the radio industry took to the 'common people' and figured out what they wanted to hear, and starting using that information to their benefit, is when the radio industry really took off. Because of Audience Demand, among other influential forces, the radio industry was really able to hook in the common person and make them want to go out and buy radios and listen to their radio programs. The radio industry was smart in thinking about what people wanted to hear, and to an extent, exploiting that. Once they knew which shows had the ratings they aimed for, they would advertise that one more often and even have companies pay to advertise their products on air, which in turn would have the listeners running to the stores to buy those products because they heard about it on their favorite radio program.

In the evolution of radio in the 1920s, Audience Demand was in the middle. After the beginning of radio, they sought after the opinions of the 'common people' and began to use those opinions to supply the audience with their 'demand' of a certain kind of show. They knew the audiences wanted to hear action-filled stories that would take them away from their own troubles for a while, so they would play shows like The Masked Avenger, as we saw in Woody Allen's Radio Days. I asked my grandfather recently what he remembered most about the radio when he was a boy, and he said it was listening to a show called The Lone Ranger. The radio used this knowledge (audience demand) to their advantage and used it to make shows that would get the ratings and get the money. The text mentions, “Radio offered advertisers direct access to the home. To increase the size of the audience for their ads, advertisers steered stations toward entertainment programs, which were more lucrative than news or education." (p. 162)

I asked my grandfather recently what he remembered most about the radio when he was a boy, and he said it was listening to a show called The Lone Ranger.