How The Transistor Radio Helped The Beatles Goes Viral

Capitol had intended to release the Beatles’ single in mid-January of ‘64, but reluctantly moved the release date up to Dec. 26, 1963 after WWDC in Washington, DC radio leaked the record in response to to a request by a teenage girl who’d seen a piece on British Beatlemania air on the "CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite," according to a piece written by Steve Greenberg forthe CBS News website.

Moving the release date up had an unexpected benefit.

In 1963, according to Greenberg, the average American teen listened to the radio for slightly more than three hours per day. With kids out of school for all of Christmas week, that number was undoubtedly even higher. And, importantly, the most common stocking-stuffers received by teens that Christmas were transistor radios, which had become cheaper than ever.

Although wildly popular since the mid-50’s, the Japanese-made transistor radio experienced exponential sales growth in the mid-60’s, as inexpensive off-brands proliferated.

While 5.5 million sets had been sold in the U.S. in 1962, by 1963 that number nearly doubled to 10 million.

The transistor radio was the technological spark that lit the fuse of teen culture in the '60’s.

McCartney w/radio

Public, because you could take it anywhere and share music with your friends in the schoolyard, on the beach, wherever, in an unprecedented fashion. Private, because you could listen through an earplug as you walked down the street, or sat in the back of the class, or lay in your bed at night, under the covers, so your parents wouldn’t know.

Within its first three days of release, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” sold 250,000 copies, certainly more than any other single over that same period, and the Beatles were immediately the most talked about group in the country.



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