THE RADIO MUSIC BOX

Sarnoff

A young immigrant from Russia named David Sarnoff spent the thirteen years from 1906 to 1919 working for the American branch of the Marconi Wireless Company. As one of the company's most skilled telegraph operators, he often forwarded memos with suggestions for company operations to E. J. Nally, the vice president and general manager. In November 1916 Sarnoff wrote a memo to Nally on the subject of the "Radio Music Box." None of the Marconi executives who read it gave it a second thought, and if they did it was to consider Sarnoff a screwball. But the memo foretold the future of the radio industry at a time when the technology was still used exclusively as a means for point-to-point communication. While radio pioneer Lee De Forest was already transmitting music from a phonograph from his home in the Bronx, his audience was made up of those who already had receivers. It would be left to others, including Sarnoff, to induce the public to buy radio receivers in great numbers.

Broadcasting Envisioned

Sarnoff proposed to develop radio as a "household utility" along the lines of a piano or a phonograph. "The idea is to bring music into the home by wireless," he wrote. While similar plans using wires had failed, Sarnoff proposed that a transmitter with a range of twenty-five to fifty miles could be installed in a central place, where singers and musicians would work their magic. Hundreds of thousands of families could receive simultaneously from the single transmitter.

Simple

A radio receiver in 1916 was a complicated apparatus, operated by people with at least minimal engineering experience. Sarnoff conceived a simple appliance for the novice. "The receiver can be designed in the form of a simple 'Radio Music Box,'" he wrote, "and arranged for several different wavelengths, which would be changeable with the throwing of a single switch or the pressing of a single button." An amplifier eradicated the need for headphones, and a circular antenna could be sealed inside the box. Sarnoff even foresaw the box "placed on a table in the parlor or the living room."

Add Sports and Talks

In addition to music, Sarnoff proposed that other forms of entertainment and information could be transmitted through the air. Lectures on any subject could be broadcast, as well as sports scores: a transmitter could be set up at the Polo Grounds. He predicted that such a service would be of immense interest to farmers and other people living in isolated places. They could enjoy the cultural activities taking place in the nearest city.

$75 Million

Sarnoff discussed the prices and profits to be made in such a venture. If one million families out of fifteen million in the country bought radio music boxes, and each was priced at $75, the manufacturer would earn $75 million, minus manufacturing and distribution costs. With the outbreak of World War I, the Marconi Company was taken over by the government. It was reconstituted in new form after the war as the Radio Corporation of America, with Sarnoff as commercial manager. He did not become its president until thirteen years later, but in many ways he ran it from the beginning, and radio made much more than $75 million for its pioneering companies.