A History of Radio Broadcast Recordings
Although some recordings were made of broadcasts as early as
1923, the first program specifically recorded only to be broadcast was
the pre-NBC "Amos 'n' Andy" from March 1928 to Sept 1929. Later in 1928
another Chicago company, The National Radio Advertising Co., started
syndicating recorded programs with advertisements. (Amos 'n' Andy was unsponsored.) Other companies began syndication of recordings in the next
few years, including the World Broadcasting System which had over 300
stations broadcasting the Chevrolet Chronicles in 1930. The World network was more than
three times the number of stations on either CBS or the combined NBC Red
and Blue.
The networks staged a campaign against the use of recordings -- sometimes
saying some of the most awful lies about the syndicators. For example, they accused the syndicated programs of having
bad sound quality, whereas it really was the wireline network which had
dreadful sound quality off the main trunk line. Small stations away from
the trunk would get far better sound off the recordings than off the line!
NBC was able to get the upper hand by creating some of their own recorded
syndicated programs in 1934 which were placed on their affiliates with
contracts that were later declared improper by the FCC and the Justice
Department. The networks banned recordings ONLY to make their wireline
networks necessary to maintain. No other country had networks with a
general ban like this.
During the early '30s some performers, advertisers, and even the networks
hired recording studios to make air-checks on uncoated aluminum in order to be
able to listen to the programs and improve the performances. Yes, indeed, the recordings were made right on a disc of plain old aluminum. The secret is that the grooves weren't cut, they were embossed.
No material was removed from the disc, the groove was actually impressed or
knurled into it. It used a rounded diamond stylus on a heavy shaft that
had a bend in it at about 45 degrees. A very heavy weight was added to the
recording head.
Ironically, these recordings are very delicate. While lacquers could be
played back with steel needles, the aluminums were supposed to be played
only with fibre (or bamboo) needles. When playing them now on modern
lightweight equipment care has to be taken that the needle is really in the
groove. It is possible for the needle to sit on the land between the
grooves and start to impress its own shallow groove on top of the land!
The aluminum disks were said to have been used starting in the late 20s (I've heard
rumors of 1927, but have never confirmed anything before 1929), and were
the preferred method until the introduction of lacquer coated aluminum
discs in late 1934. A few companies clinged to their use into the late
30s, but the lacquers had obvious sound quality and wear benefits. A fibre
needle only lasted 5 minutes so that playback limitation restricted the
recording time length until in the mid 30s Fairchild Camera Corp came up
with a plastic impregnated fibre needle and then manufactured the first
16-inch bare aluminum blanks.
Programs from the early 30s that are preserved only because of this type of
disc include Fred Allen's Linit Bath Club Revue, some of the early Jack
Benny and Burns & Allen shows, and Rudy Vallee's vast archive of his early
broadcasts. Some of the early NBC programs in their archive that were on
these discs include the W.E.N.R. Derby and some recordings of the news
specials from the stratosphere baloon expedition.
After the introduction of the lacquer coated disc in late 1934 stations started to
get their own recording equipment. NBC began making their own
recordings in 1935, and CBS followed in 1938. Mutual allowed some recordings on
their network starting in 1936, but NBC only allowed a handful before the
last years of World War II. They did make file recordings of many programs,
calling them Reference Recordings. They never arranged to have any
re-broadcast rights to any of these programs. They could only be used in a non-broadcast context.
Some network shows were allowed to be delayed broadcast on some
stations, but this was usually controlled by the sponsor if the program was
owned by the ad agency. After the War the networks started to have
daylight saving time delays during the summers, and ABC began using tape for this purpose in
1947. ABC had previously allowed Bing Crosby's Philco Radio Time to be broadcast via edited recordings. They used discs at first. When they
first mastered onto tape they still dubbed to disc until the daylight
saving time delay experiment showed that tape was reliable. Local stations
continued to have some syndicated programs, recorded commercials, and
also recorded music library services throughout the '30s and '40s. NBC
FINALLY removed the restrictions of the use of recordings on the network in
1949.
TAPE RECORDING
Tape started to be developed back in the 1920s by Fritz
Pflaumer of BASF, and the machine was developed by the AEG company, the
German GE, so to speak. It was publically displayed at the 1935 Radio Show
in Germany, but it was not up to the quality of a good disc recording. The
tape was improved a bit and the machine improved, but when one was sent to
the American GE in Schenectady in 1938 their report was that it was not
much better than a wax cylinder dictating machine. And this from a huge
machine using tape at 30 inches per second! The Germans have always been
miffed about that report because they still feel that the machine must have
been operated incorrectly. I have discussed this with their researchers
because in all likelyhood the AEG Magnetophon model K2 serial number 1024
that I own is that very machine. It is two numbers lower than the one that
BASF has, and mine is more completely original than theirs is, because they
continued to use it and replaced worn parts with newly fabricated ones.
Bias was re-discovered around 1939 and greatly improved the performance of
the machine. It was introduced into German radio around that time, and was
used for syndication of classical music and opera. Over a hundred of these
recordings were made in STEREO but only seven of the stereos survive.
During the war there were numerous articles about the Magnetophon in the
German magazine Rundfunk, and I have photocopies of the articles from the Library of Congress. Pictures, diagrams, descriptions, and explanations of its use were all published in the
magazine that was the Radio Guide for Germany. That is really keeping it secret, isn't it!!
At the end of the war the tape machine was discovered by the Allies liberating
radio stations. While the K6 was a vastly improved machine over the
pre-war K2, just because >John (Jack) T. Mullin had never heard about it doesn't make
it a war secret. Capt. R.H. Ranger and Herbert Orr also discovered
machines. Mullin sent several back and interested Bing Crosby into
investing into its development. He also interested AMPEX into undertaking that development.
Marvin Camras was developing the wire recorder during the late 30s and
early 40s in Chicago. But there earlier had been a steel tape recorder
originally called the Blatnerphone which was used by some radio stations as
early as 1929. It was improved around 1932 as the Marconi-Stille. There
is one known machine in working condition in Melborne, Australia, and 5
years ago a friend of mine from the CBC shipped the 12 reels that the CBC
have down to Australia to be played at the time that he would be in
Australia for the International Association of Sound Archives conference
that I also attended. I have a videotape of the machine in operation. All
but one of the steel tapes were wartime programs with interviews of British
children evacuated to Canada.
The plastic tape recorder was not the revolutionary device it has been made
out to be. There were other machines that could record continuously for an
hour, there were other machines that sounded better. So don't believe all
of the fairy tales you hear about how the Germans used it as a secret
machine to fool the allies. It became a good machine during the war, but
disc recording was still better. The tape recorder did not become a great
machine until American improvements were added after the war. The first
Ampexes were in 1947, and there also were machines by Brush, Magnecord, and
Ranger. Eicor, Bell, and then Revere, Pentron, and a few others started
to work on the home market--all just before 1950. Webster-Chicago and
Silvertone made wire recorder at that time also. ABC started using tape in
1948 for daylight savings time delays for the areas that did not switch to
daylight time. They used Ampex and Stencil-Hoffman machines. John Mullin had
started to record the Crosby Philco Radio Time on tape in the summer of 47, but it was dubbed to disc until 48.
CONCLUSION
There are MANY other ways of making recordings that have been utilized over the years. Grooves were embossed in all sorts
of plastic discs and films, and in one case, the Philips-Miller machine, a
vertical groove of varying width was chisled into the top opaque layer on a
clear film to make a variable-area recording that could be replayed
optically just like photographic film sound. A friend of mine at the Voice
of America is researching some stereo recordings made on this machine in
Holland in the late 30s -early 40s. WOR and WQXR used this machine (in
mono, of course) in the U.S. in the late 30s till the war cut-off supplies
of the raw film.
(Michael Biel is professor of Radio-TV at Morehead State University in Kentucky and author of The Making and Use of Recordings in Broadcasting before 1936.)