Customer Reviews

Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You awaken to a clock radio, press a button on a miniature transmitter to unlock your car and chat on a wireless phone. A pager dangles from your belt and the headphones of a miniature FM radio are perched on your ears. Whether the TV shows you watch arrive over a cable, a satellite dish or an antenna, at some point, they travelled through the air.

It's easy to think we've progressed so much since the invention of radio but when you think about it, radio and its progeny are everywhere. Even the computer on which you're reading this owes its very existence, ultimately, to the trinity of Lee de Forest, Edwin Howard Armstrong and David Sarnoff. A more colorful cast of characters could not have been created by mere fiction.

De Forest, the frustrated-at-every-turn inventor who, nonetheless, stumbled upon the pivotal technology that began the age of electronics. Armstrong, voracious reader of scientific journals and tinkerer, who understood de Forest's inventions even better than de Forest himself. David Sarnoff, protege of the great Marconi, opportunistic, driven by a fierce loyalty to the company he headed at its inception until his death, RCA.

Ken Burns tells the story with remarkable detail in just 2 hours. Like his other productions for PBS, "Empire of the Air" is mostly archival footage and still photos interspersed with interviews of those who were present at the creation of radio. The stories of the three "Men who Made Radio" begin with brief histories of each and more detailed descriptions of their contributions. Lee de Forest invented the Audion tube, mostly by copying or "borrowing" the work of others, but when pressed for an explanation of how it functioned, he found himself at a loss. Edwin Howard Armstrong DID understand it, so much so that he invented the technologies that enabled de Forest's "fire bottle" to carry voice and music into the air. David Sarnoff, at first a courier for American Marconi and eventually put in charge of the brand new Radio Corporation of America, saw in radio a means of bringing information and entertainment to far-flung Americans.

Burns also captures the personalities of each: de Forest's belief in the lone inventor and that the fame he always sought was just around the next corner; Armstrong's sheer brilliance that ultimately led to the invention of both AM radio as we know it and FM radio as well; Sarnoff's drive and his faith in the corporation above all else, even to the point of choosing his allegiance to RCA over his long-time friendship with Armstrong. All three would eventually battle it out in court, at a cost of the life of one of them at his own hand.

The Radio Era began with the work of lone inventors and ended with major improvements and new technologies coming out of the well-funded and staffed research laboratories of the likes of RCA, Westinghouse, General Electric and AT&T. By the late 1950s, the days of great inventions appeared to be over. There were no new worlds for individuals to conquer. Having survived 2 World Wars with the help of radio, with color TV beaming entertainment into our homes, America and the world believed that they had seen it all. We would never again see the likes of de Forest, Armstong and Sarnoff, as well as their contemporaries Edison, Bell and Ford.

That is, until the 1970s when a guy named Steve in Cupertino, California convinced his friend, also named Steve, that they could start a company to sell computers that would fit on a desktop. That's a story for whole 'nother PBS special called, appropriately, "Triumph of the Nerds," ...

A wonderful look at the early history of broadcasting with just the right amount of technical description and science salted in. Explores the fascinating relationship between the lone genius Armstrong, the litigation loving promoter De Forest, and the calculating, self-made tycoon David Sarnoff. Better than a movie! This story contains love, hate, greed, jealosy, big money and big inventions that changed the world forever, and it is all true! One of those films that satisfies our need to be entertained and enlightened at the same time.

It is surprising to learn that wireless communication has been with us for well over 100 years.
Ken Burns' inspired documentary about the creation and evolution of radio is told primarily through biographies of three dynamic individuals: Lee de Forest, Edwin Howard Armstrong, and David Sarnoff.

This is not a sentimental and syrupy look-back to a bygone era. Radio seems to have been the prodigal child born of a dysfunctional family of inventors and marketeers.

The drama is compelling; the technology, indispensable to our modern way of life.
Don't miss it!

This film was a very good in-depth look at the people who were most responsible for bringing radio to the masses. However, I find it distressing that Nikola Tesla was never mentioned once in this documentary. Everyone remembers Marconi as the "father" of radio, but it was actually Tesla, in his experiments with the wireless transmission of power, who invented radio and who was the true father. Ken Burns would have done good to at least mention that fact. Other than this discrepancy, the documentary is a very good look into the early history of radio.

The program concentrates on the three men most responsible for bringing radio to the masses: Lee DeForest, Edwin Armstrong, and David Sarnoff.

Lee DeForest's only real claim to fame was the invention of the "Audion" radio tube, made by borrowing an earlier invention, the Fleming valve, and adding a bent piece of wire between the cathode and plate, which DeForest called a "grid." His invention made possible the real evolution of the radio, even though he was never able to explain how it worked.

DeForest also "borrowed" other physicist's inventions and tried to pass them off as his own. He was eventually sued by the Canadian inventor Reginald Fessenden, who successfully claimed that DeForest stole one of his ideas and claimed that he (DeForest) had "invented" it.

Edwin Howard Armstrong, the second player in our drama, took DeForest's radio tube and built an improved radio around it, subsequently inventing the first real innovation, "regeneration." He was also able to adequately explain how DeForest's audion tube worked, and invented circuits that allowed the tube to transmit as well as receive.

DeForest was always trying to sue Armstrong for his patents, believing the idea of regeneration to be his, not Armstrong's, and Armstrong would spend his fortune and the rest of his life defending his patents. Armstrong is also credited with inventing FM (Frequency Modulation).

The third player in the radio drama is David Sarnoff. Through a series of associations with Marconi, Armstrong and other radio pioneers, Sarnoff almost singlehandedly created the radio broadcasting industry (and the first radio network, NBC), and he would let nothing and no one stand in his way. His company, RCA, was largely responsible for the invention of television, which used some of Armstrong's FM inventions (Armstrong never received credit for this due to his falling-out with Sarnoff).

Some of the best sequences of the program are those where only a glowing radio tube is present and an old radio show is heard. This allows the viewer to listen much like their grandparents might have when radio was the only broadcasting medium in existence.

With all that said, I give the program a four-star rating only because nowhere is Tesla, who is the true father of radio, mentioned.

In many ways I find Empire of the Air to be the finest documentry by the highly acclaimed film maker, Ken Burns. Certainly The Civil War is grander and more episodic. Jazz is perhaps more entertaining. And Baseball touches the very soul of America. But Empire of the Air demonstrates how far reaching radio changed the entire political, entertainment and economic landscape of America in the first half of the twentieith century. The impact of radio stands unprecidented in the field of invention.

Think about it, if you were involved in almost any industry in America during radio's golden era, it more likley than not was dependant upon radio. With pitch-man like "Speedy Alka-Seltzer", the mmm-mmm-good Campbells Soup Kids, Phillip Morris's Page-Boy and Bert & Harry Piels, it was radio that created new markets for soaps and soups, remedies and hair-care products, oil and gasoline, tobacco and beer, soda pop and sweets, milk and dairy products, insurance and automobiles, clothes washers and vacuum cleaners and almost any other consumer product available at the time.

Radio also provided an information super highway that was unimiginable before its time. Farmers could get up-to-the-minute weather reports. World events were reported on a real-time basis and sporting events were brought right into a young boy's home. The radio dial became a beacon to global news.

Imiagine a world with all this and entertainment that could captiviate an entire family for hours at a time. Surely it was miraculous to be listening to Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Red Barber, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bob Hope or Billy Sunday right in one's own living room. You felt as if you were transported accross the globe to historic events. You could hear the sounds of artillery at places like Dunkirk, The Arden Forrest and Normandy. You were a living witness to the towering achievements of the early twentieth century. Events like Lindberg's Atlantic crossing, Caruso's debut at New York's Metropolitan Opera House and Babe Ruth's infamous "called-shot" at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

The story of radio and its principle inventors and innovators is beautifully told in photographs and archival recordings. Ken Burns expertly guides us into the lives of Lee DeForrest, the self proclaimed "father of radio", Edwin Armstrong, brilliant pioneer and visionary and David Sarnoff, who lived by the credo, "I don't get ulcers, I give them". We see how fierce battle lines were drawn first between De Forrest and Armstrong and later between Armstrong and Sarnoff. Each man fighting to leave his indelible stamp on the invention and the industry.

Yes, radio may seem primitive in this age of computer enlightenment, but in a simpler and much gentiler time radio was an extraordinary window to the world and the first true information super highway. Empire of the Air is essential viewing for anyone wishing to gain insight and a greater understanding of the communications revolution of the twentieth century. Let Ken Burns guide you along the way.

This documentary skillfully tells the story of the three men most responsible for what radio has become today. It is also the story of radio.

Burns portrays brilliant yet egocentric FM radio inventor Edwin Howard Armstrong as the centerpiece of his film. Armstrong's friendship with RCA Chairman David Sarnoff and his personal and legal troubles with Lee DeForest and later Sarnoff are really the center of the documentary.

While Armstrong's story is somewhat heartbreaking, Sarnoff's story is alternately despicable and inspiring. It shows his rise from a Russian immigrant selling papers on the street to become, at his death, one of the most cutthroat and powerful people in entertainment.

Then, there's Lee deForest. He's portrayed as a flamboyant self promoter that built his life and career on the backs of others including Armstrong.

With the stories of these three men is also the story of radio from its early days. Burns weaves together old-time broadcasts and many interviews with popular public figures, people who knew Armstrong, deForest, and Sarnoff, and individuals associated with early radio. I acknowledge the earlier review that says the movie slights Tesla...it does. The documentary probably should have mentioned Tesla in some way, but the focus of the movie is more on the lines of the three men that made radio what it is today.

You will laugh at Lee Deforest, and you will feel deep sorrow in your heart for Edwin Armstrong. You may even hate David Sarnoff a bit. Ken Burns is a great filmmaker, and he's working with great material here. He clearly has a message in this movie. I wish Hollywood would get ahold of this book and make it into a feature-length movie. The documentary based on the book is really and truly a masterpiece. I recommend this documentary to anyone interested in the medium of radio or television. I also recommend this film to anyone interested in inventing or the history of inventing in general.

This documentary is something very special. Whatever your interest in communications, you'll never look at radio/TV the same after viewing this tape. This is one of my most treasured vidoes.

Ken Burns' documentary about the invention and growth of commercial, broadcast radio is first-rate, pitch perfect. As a portrait of American ingenuity and American cutthroat business, here is a key tale in the epic story of "how the future began." Television, cable TV, cellular radio,... all sprouted from this early 20th Century phenomenon. Worth showing to your kids.

I've had mixed feelings about what I've seen from Ken Burns before; in both "Baseball" and "Jazz" he spends too much time cutting from the story to a shot of a person staring off into the distance with a glint in their eye and talking in the most maddeningly vague and meaningless terms about "Gee, how wonderful and thoroughly *American* baseball is," and "Man, jazz is just something you have to *feel.*" I have no problem with reflection and emotion in a documentary, but Burns has a fatal weakness for it that ends up inflating what could have been an 8 hour documentary into a 12 hour "epic."

"Empire of the Air" is the first thing by Burns I've seen that has gotten it right. Above all, he is telling us a story here, and it is surely a great one. Lee de Forest, David Sarnoff, and Harold Armstrong are each fascinating figures, and their trials and tribulations, loves and jealousies and even deaths are fascinatingly presented. Burns shows his usual talent for directing and editing, skillfully and seemlessly mixing fascinating archival footage and sound. And we do get the poetic reminescences here that I complained of earlier, though in an appropriate degree, and from unusually eloquent talking heads: Garrison Keillor and in particular the great Norman Corwin. These two artists are able to clearly and articulately impart the magic of radio without some of the repetitiveness and cliches that plagued some of the commentators in "Baseball" and "Jazz."

A little more on some of the characters who inhabited the airwaves -- Jack Benny, Orson Welles, and Fred Allen, to name but a few -- would have been welcome, but perhaps Burns was wise in mostly skimming over them -- they deserve another documentary all their own. What we have in "Empire of the Air" is enough, and the best that I've seen yet from Ken Burns. Highly recommended.

When asked by reporters about what he thought of Marconi's first 'commercial' radio transmission,Tesla responded, " Good luck to Marconi. He's using 17 of my patents."
Three American pioneers in radio are portrayed in this documentary. It is in Ken Burns' classic style with period music, photos and early sound / radio & film clips interwoven with historical facts and anecdotes. It is excellent in terms of general public TV programming.
For more detailed & technical study of the controversies involved in development of radio, an introduction to Tesla's theoretical contributions & his disputes with Marconi would provide a more complicated but accurate history. If Marconi assembled available state-of-the-art components of radio to achieve transmission,then, did he invent radio? Most of the important components that he assembled were patented by Tesla.

FYI -- This is summary from web "The simplified history: Tesla, the expert in high frequency power systems, follows a vision of worldwide instantaneous communication and invents a radio SPARK TRANSMITTER whose output power far outstrips anything of the period. This spark transmitter is based on several key Tesla techniques: rotary spark gap, lumped resonance (rather than antenna resonance,) capacitor energy storage, and an antennea with a ground connection. Tesla also invents a mechanical AC generator or "alternator" capable of broadcasting high power radio waves. Of course radio recievers already existed: the coherer, (NOT invented by Marconi but by Branly and others.) Earlier radio systems such as that of Hertz and Stubblefield also existed, but they had extremely limited range. Tesla's amazing spark transmitter put out 1000 to 10,000 times the power of existing transmitters, and made worldwide communication feasible."


Today we call this transmitter by the name "Tesla Coil."


This was the status in 1893, with several patents granted to Tesla in 1898 and on. Besides the spark transmitter, the high frequency alternator, and the grounded antenna, Tesla's inventions also included the four tuned circuits of all modern radio systems: a transmitter and receiver at both ends of a radio link, all four using tuning.


Next stage: Marconi takes the Branly coherer and Tesla's spark transmitter and antenna inventions, commercializing them. But Tesla ignores this threat, believing that his completed "world system" will be far superior to Marconi's ocean-spanning demonstration. Therefore Tesla pursues centralized power transmission rather than simple communications alone. He says something to the effect "good luck to Marconi, he's using seventeen of my patents." Perhaps Tesla had a point, since Marconi did see his own patents rejected numerous times by the US Patent Office. The patent officer thought it ridiculous that Marconi claimed not to know about Tesla Coils. But then mysteriously Marconi's patents were suddenly accepted.


Tesla also remained aloof from the community of early radio developers while single-mindedly pursuing his own vision. Nearly twenty years later Tesla finally takes Marconi to court. He can't afford powerful lawers and a long court case. He loses! As many other inventors have found, the winner in a patent battle is usually the side with the deeper pockets. Tesla couldn't afford to continue the court case. Also, though Tesla's patents were prior to Marconi, Marconi had the press behind him. Marconi also had both the US government as well as big business behind him. The country wanted point-to-point radio, while the inventor of the spark transmitter wanted only centralized power broadcast stations. Tesla also wanted to keep control of radio by patenting his work. One can imagine that the government and commercial sectors would search for a way to get such an important invention loose from Tesla's hands by breaking the patents. This probably was the reason why Marconi's US radio patents suddenly went through in the first place after being rejected. Finally, Tesla was an unknown in Radio when compared to Marconi, and the judge was very probably not a technical expert.


Tesla loses his R&D financing in later decades, while Marconi's international companies are wildly successful. It's not a conspiracy theory to say "whoever has the gold, makes the rules." Tesla is not vindicated until 1943, when the US Supreme court reverses the old decision, strikes down the Marconi patents, and awards priority to Tesla #645,576. This was no altruism, since large amounts of money rode on the possibility that Marconi's existing companies could lose their patents.


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