Holds Great Promise...
The creative potential inherent to radio would unfortunately never truly be realized. The use of live musicians in most of the radio programmes created problems for the recording industry, which could not do much more than sit back and to bear with the consequences of these new developments.

The recording companies had to make compromises (RCA-Victor was the first to do so). Electric gramophones were used at the radio stations, but the gramophone would gradually lose its autonomy to become a complement to radio.

Negative Cultural Impact
Before the advent of radio a certain cultural diversity could be found amongst listeners, notably due to the music published as “Race Records”, i.e. music stemming largely from the black community (Blues, Dixieland, Hot Jazz). Originally very successful items for the recording companies, these genres were gradually (but irreversibly) assimilated into the musical genres the radios loved so much and played back to back between programmes — swing, big band.

In a general manner, despite the innovative potential it had in regards to radiophonic theatre and technological developments, radio played an important role in the standardization and banalization of popular music of the day by imposing upon them a certain uniformity, almost even destroying the genres in the process.

Creative Potential
These developments did not prevent some artists from exploring the unique potential of radio. In France, around 1920, Gabriel Germinet wrote on the subject and around 1923 created the radio play Marémoto (“Seaquake”) which, through the use of sound effects and a convincingly “real” dramatic portrayal, recreated the sinking of a ship. As the Titanic tragedy was still fresh in people’s minds, many who heard the broadcast thought that they were in fact witnessing a similar event, live. The work had a similar effect on the public as did “The War of the Worlds”, a theatre work directed by Orson Welles as part of the Mercury Theatre on the Air series and broadcast by CBS on 30 October 1938. It created an incredible panic because of its presentation as a newscast but especially because of its subject — the invasion of Earth by Martians.

Un rôle de diffuseur important
Despite its conservatism, radio has played an important role in the dissemination of electroacoustic and electronic music. It was alone (this is less true nowadays) in promoting this art form on a fairly large scale, despite the fact that it sometimes did so by obligation and that shows regularly programming such music tended to be relegated to the least desirable or popular time slots.

It is important to remember that it is here that musique concrète was born, in 1948.