Will Rogers - KDKA Program for March 26, 1922

When Will Rogers first appeared on the radio in February of 1922 at KDKA-AM in Pittsburgh, PA. He was accompanied by the Ziegfeld Girls, from Ziegfeld Follies. Ziegfeld Follies were a Broadway show that ran in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in their own right in 1932 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air.

Will Rogers Made His First Appeared On Radio On KDKA, Pittsburgh!

Always a talker and a fabled raconteur, Will Rogers was a natural for radio. 

His warm and entertaining voice needed only amplification, and radio provided just that.

In a time when World War I and the Great Depression dominated the national scene, Will Rogers’ down-home charm and incredible insight explained the phenomena and exposed the foibles. Good event or bad, Will delivered a timely message, jestful appraisal or jocular warning.

Will performed his first radio broadcast in Pittsburgh in 1922 on station KDKA when the medium was in its infancy. That broadcast signal was picked up only by crystal sets and earphones, the forerunners of radios with loudspeakers. 

Will Rogers continued to appear on radio through the 1920s and made his first regularly scheduled broadcasts in the spring of 1930 for the pharmaceutical firm E. R. Squibb & Sons. His weekly Sunday evening show, The Gulf Headliners, ranked by 1935 among the top fifteen radio programs in the country.

 In concert with ideas he was conveying in newspaper columns, movies and magazine articles, Will’s radio addresses were the principal opinion molders during the first half of the 1930s.

Father of KDKA Radio: Dr. Frank Conrad

Dr. Frank Conrad, assistant chief engineer of Westinghouse Electric, developed the technology that made KDKA Radio possible. He constructed a transmitter and installed it in a garage near his home in Wilkinsburg in 1916. The station was licensed as 8XK.

When amateur radio operation resumed after the war, most radio messages consisted of amateur radio operators trading information, describing the equipment they were using and where their stations were located. Bored by the chatter, Dr. Conrad chose to introduce entertainment to the airwaves, and on Oct. 17, 1920, he put his microphone by a phonograph. At 6 p.m. on Nov. 2, 1920, 8KX became KDKA Radio and began broadcasting at 100 watts from a make-shift shack atop one of the Westinghouse manufacturing buildings in East Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Post provided election returns by telephone, and returns were relayed to almost a thousand listeners, who learned through this fantastic new medium that Warren G. Harding had defeated James M. Cox in the presidential race. 

Read More

Historic Pittsburgh: KDKA RADIO - First Radio Broadcast in US History!

Beginnings of KDKA, with entire staff of four

 
Pittsburgh's place in radio history is simple: it's the birthplace of commercial radio. KDKA, the market's all-time most successful station, was also the first station ever to broadcast to a mass market. The station was owned by Westinghouse Electric Company, who kicked off a new era in communications, in which people scattered around town could enjoy the same experience without ever leaving their homes.

It started at 8:00 pm, 2 November 1910,with the station broadcasting the  Presidential Election returns, in which Warren Harding defeated James Cox.

By the end of 1923, KDKA was heard regularly all over the United States as well as some parts of Europe, South America and the Hawaiian Islands