Audience Demand

Audience demand helped shape the radio industry by indirectly deciding would be played and focused on.

Audience demand is a phenomenon that always has, is, and always will be a huge factor in society and societal changes.  This is especially true when it comes to entertainment because entertainment's whole purpose is to appeal to an audience.  Even today, we see what gets on the radio or television as a direct response to what the masses demand.  What the masses demand is what makes money.  In the early shaping of radio, audience demand played a very similar role as it does in radio and television today.  However, because the technology was so fledgling at the time, it had a major impact on the shaping of the whole industry.

From the time the Titanic used a Marconi radio to call in a distress signal, people have been fascinated by the radio and attention was swiftly drawn to the technology.  This also drew the attention of the U.S. government and many cooperate executives who saw the potential in radio as an important means of communication and a good way to make a buck.  It was in this way that radio's general audience was able to "choose" what was on the radio.  Those putting on shows and deciding how the radio would be used wanted to pander to an the audience and play what they wanted to hear in order to make money.  This can be seen when looking at how advertisers put their ads on the entertainment stations because that had more listeners than either news or education as seen in the text.