The Wired Wireless Mass Medium

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The invention of radio at the beginning of the twentieth century further transformed the individual's relationship to the collective by providing a system for instantaneous verbal communication across great distances. During the 1920’s, commercial radio broadcasts spread across radio waves providing regular, dependable media experiences that large numbers of individuals could share simultaneously, even while apart. Once purchased, radios assembled these individuals into a mass audience regardless of their literacy or social status, creating the first true mass media. Through the addition of the tuning dial, radio listeners gained the effortless experience of surfing for information from different channels and the ability to choose between programs for the first time. Listening to the radio was less a private experience enjoyed by an autonomous individual and more a series of individual or small group experiences in which individuals saw themselves as part of a regionally dispersed body made up of content producers, transmitters, radio signals, receivers, and other listeners whom they may never meet or know personally.

Radio, however, still faced many real limitations: it required large and expensive signal towers, its relatively weak transmissions would often degrade in poor weather conditions and were easily interrupted by local terrain, and signals would drop-off due to distance.

In 1911, General George Squier discovered a solution to these problems, finding an effective means of audio transmission over electrical power lines using the signal multiplexing he developed to carry multiple channels over one wire. In contrast to wireless radio, transmitting music through the system Squier named “wired wireless” ensured higher signal quality regardless of atmospheric or solar conditions. Weary of the privatization that had marred the early development of the telephone industry, Squier patented his discovery in the name of the American Public, making the technology available for free use and development across the nation.

Engineers adapted the new technology to create the first countrywide communications network allowing the simultaneous delivery of programs through utility lines to remote radio transmitting stations. Squier, however, was not satisfied with the commercial structure of radio, in which programs were funded by intrusive commercials. He hoped to create a new network supported by a toll that would also make unnecessary the commercials and program interruptions that sponsored, and in Squier's mind corrupted, radio. Squier approached the North American Company, then the nation’s largest utility company to transmit music over their lines. North American responded positively and formed Wired Radio, Incorporated. To avoid problems with broadcast rights to music, North American purchased Breitkopf Publications, Inc., a European music-publishing house, and renamed it Associated Music Publishers.

But between the development of superheterodyne circuits, vacuum tubes, and volume controls for radios and the onset of the Depression, which encouraged consumers to stick with a one-time radio purchase over the expense of a long-term lease, wired wireless was not initially successful. Nevertheless, North American persevered and, in 1934, formed the Muzak Corporation to transmit music directly to homes in Cleveland. Muzak's name was derived from a merger of the word “music” with “Kodak,” which was, by that time, widely regarded as a highly technological and reputable company. Squier died later that year, never to see the success of his invention.

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