September 12 Radio History

➦In 1932...Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 'Tarzan of the Apes' began as a 15-minute show on WOR NYC and several other stations.  The series had Burroughs' daughter, Joan, in the role of Jane.

H.V. Kaltenborn

➦In 1938...While with CBS Radio, commentator H.V. Kaltenborn made broadcasting history on this day.  Kaltenborn was one of the first news readers to provide analysis and insight into current news stories. His vast knowledge of foreign affairs and international politics amply equipped him for covering crises in Europe and the Far East in the 1930s.

His vivid reporting of the Spanish Civil War and the Czech crisis of 1938 helped establish the credibility of radio news in the public mind. Kaltenborn reported on the Spanish Civil War "while hiding in a haystack between the two armies. Listeners in America could hear bullets hitting the hay above him while he spoke."  Hewas so devoted to his work that he slept in the studio for 18 days while bringing broadcasting updates.

➦ In 1958...electrical engineer Jack S. Kilby was a newly employed engineer at Texas Instruments (TI). Lacking vacation time off, he spent the summer working on the problem in circuit design that was commonly called the "tyranny of numbers", and he finally came to the conclusion that the manufacturing of circuit components en masse in a single piece of semiconductor material could provide a solution.

On September 12, he presented his findings to company's management. He showed them a piece of germanium with an oscilloscope attached, pressed a switch, and the oscilloscope showed a continuous sine wave, proving that his integrated circuit worked, and hence he had solved the problem. U.S. Patent 3,138,743 was granted for a"Miniaturized Electronic Circuits", the first integrated micro-chip circuit, was granted the next year.  Along with Robert Noyce (who independently made a similar circuit a few months later), Kilby is generally credited as co-inventor of the integrated circuit.

➦In 2001... XM Satellite Radio was scheduled to start service on this date.  But because of the terrorist attacks of the previous day XM’s debut was postponed to Sept. 25th.

The company had its origins in the 1988 formation of the American Mobile Satellite Corporation (AMSC), a consortium of several organizations originally dedicated to satellite broadcasting of telephone, fax, and data signals. In 1992, AMSC established a unit called the American Mobile Radio Corporation dedicated to developing a satellite-based digital radio service; this was spun off as XM Satellite Radio Holdings, Inc. in 1999.

On July 29, 2008, XM and former competitor Sirius Satellite Radio formally completed their merger, following FCC approval, forming SiriusXM Radio, Inc. with XM Satellite Radio, Inc. as its subsidiary. On November 12, 2008, Sirius and XM began broadcasting with their new, combined channel lineups. On January 13, 2011, XM Satellite Radio, Inc. was dissolved as a separate entity and merged into Sirius XM Radio, Inc.  Prior to its merger with Sirius, XM was the largest satellite radio company in the United States.


➦In 2013…Inventor Ray Dolby, who took the hiss out of the soundtrack of our lives, died in San Francisco. He was 80 and had been living with Alzheimer's disease, compounded by a diagnosis of leukemia in July.

The name Dolby first became common decades ago when the sound wizard developed a system for eliminating the static noise on cassette tapes used for copying music from vinyl albums. The "Dolby" button on a cassette deck was a requirement for every college stereo. His influence also extended to film, where he helped bring "Star Wars" to life and created an entire industry devoted to the sound experience.

➦In 2014...CBS CEO Les Moonves stated they might "trim down radio". He added, "We still believe in radio. It is a slow growth radio. We like it."  CBS Eventually 'merged' with Entercom in 2017.