'' comedy radio show in England, 1945 According to
Encyclopædia Britannica, the first transmission sent over radio waves were voice and music signals transmitted in December 1906 from
Brant Rock, Massachusetts. Canadian experimenter
Reginald Fessenden produced approximately an hour of talk and music that was heard by radio amateurs before radio's popularity exploded. Other experiments in radio before it became part of widespread culture were transmitted including those by
Charles Herrold in
San Jose, California in 1908. Radio hobbyists continued to experiment, and popularity grew during the decade before
World War I, a time before loudspeakers, where listeners would “listen in” with
headphones. The first instrument used to access radio signals were
crystal sets which used a tiny piece of
galena (lead sulfide) called a “cat's whisker” to detect signals. The challenge with these sets were tuning into specific stations, though they were inexpensive and easy to make. These devices would likely have become more widespread, but in 1917 federal government placed restrictions on radio transmissions. After the war, in the years 1920 to 1945 radio became the first electronic mass medium by using radio waves to broadcast to a vast audience. In its early years radio introduced the masses to immediate news and entertainment. In 1920–1921 about 30 radio stations took to the air, mostly developed from amateur operations. In 1921, the first live sporting event aired; it was a boxing match with play-by-play by reporter Florent Gibson. In 1922, over 550 new stations began to fill the available frequencies, although many disappeared because they couldn't afford the costs of operation. Radio stations had simplistic studios composed of walls covered in
burlap for
soundproofing, a
microphone, and occasionally a
piano to fill interludes. Everything on air was live, because in these early years recordings were such poor quality. == Political integration ==