The Once and Former King.

After a "pioneer period" from the first successful experiments in the 1890s to the 1920s, radio entered a golden age in the 1930s. Before the first truly successful television broadcasts early in the 1940s, radio was the only broadcast medium, and its popularity in the United States during the time rivaled that of television since the late 1940s. For two decades radio was king.

Little Change.

The nature of the golden age of radio was established in the 1930s, and radio programming remained basically unchanged during the 1940s. Comedy-variety shows featuring popular actors and musicians, soap operas, adventure programs such as The Shadow and The Lone Ranger, and news dominated the airwaves. The only substantial difference between the decades was the amount of news on the radio, which increased substantially when the United States...