1923 in radio

1923 in radio details the internationally significant events in radio broadcasting for the year 1923.

Events

• 1 January – In the United States the well-known American Football Rose Bowl Game is broadcast for the first time, on Los Angeles station KHJ.
• 4 January – WEAF in New York City and WNAC in Boston simultaneously broadcast a saxophone solo—the first network broadcast.^[1]
• 8 January – First outside broadcast by the British Broadcasting Company: a British National Opera Company production of The Magic Flute from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
• 13 February – First BBC broadcast from Cardiff, Wales (station 5WA).
• 18 January – The United Kingdom Postmaster General grants the BBC a licence to broadcast.
• 6 March – First BBC broadcast from Glasgow, Scotland (station 5SC).
• 13 March – Production of the first radio set incorporating a loudspeaker. All previously produced sets had required the use of headphones.
• 1 April – In Vienna the Czeija & Nissl electrical company begins test transmissions from its premises in co-operation with a technical high school, the Technisches Gewerbemusem. This marks the start of radio broadcasting in Austria.
• 2 May – WCAE signs on as Pittsburgh's third radio station.^[2]
• 14 May – RCA purchases WJZ from the Westinghouse Electric Corporation; it would also have its city of license transferred from Newark, New Jersey to New York.
• 18 May – The first regular radio broadcasts begin in Czechoslovakia.^[3]
• 3 July – WSAR in Fall River, Massachusetts, makes its first broadcast, having been licensed in the previous month.
• 21 July – The Dutch radio manufacturing company Nederlandsche Seintoestellen Fabriek begins regular radio broadcasting in the Netherlands.
• 26 September – In Cleveland, Ohio, S. E. Lawrence and Theodore Willard launch WTAM in the name of the Willard Storage Battery Company.
• 29 October – Regular radio broadcasting in Germany officially begins with the first evening transmission from the Sendestelle Berlin installed at the Vox-Haus in Potsdamer Platz.^[4][5]
• 13 November – Australia's first licensed radio station, 2SB, begins transmission in Sydney.
• 23 November – In Belgium French-speaking station Radio Bruxelles begins broadcasting (it will change its name to Radio Belgique on 1 January 1924).
• 31 December
  • KDKA in Pittsburgh conducts the first transcontinental voice broadcast with a station in Manchester, England.^[6]
  • The BBC broadcasts the chimes of Big Ben for the first time.^[7]

Debuts

• 22 March – Hockey Night in Canada is first broadcast on the Toronto Star's private station CFCA.
• 1 June – The publicly owned Canadian National Railways establishes the CNR Radio network to supply programming on its fleet of passenger cars; it is the first national network in North America and precursor to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Births

• 9 May – Johnny Grant, American radio host and producer (d. 2008)
• 25 December – Gordon Baxter, American radio personality, author and columnist.(died 2005)

References