Radio Facts

A famous comparison claims radio took 38 years to reach 50 million users, television took 13 years, and the World Wide Web just 4 years—though these widely-cited numbers from a Morgan Stanley report lack precise methodology, they illustrate a real trend of accelerating technology adoption.

The first song played on Virgin Radio was Born to be wild by INXS!

In 1977, researchers detected a strong and unusual radio signal from space that lasted 72 seconds. It hasn't been detected since.

Jupiter emits powerful radio bursts that amateur astronomers can detect with a simple shortwave radio antenna, making it one of the few planets you can 'listen' to from Earth.

Since 1982, a radio frequency emanating from Russia has been broadcasting a buzzer-like sound and, periodically, an unknown voice reads orders, names, and numbers. No one knows where exactly it is coming from or what it means.

Dave Chappelle spent nearly $13 million to save and rebuild a landmark in his hometown of Yellow Springs, Ohio. He bought the 1872 Union Schoolhouse - the first integrated school in the village - and turned it into a 19,000 sq ft home for public radio station WYSO. The station moved in and never looked back. "If you have the opportunity like I did, to invest in your community," he said, "then it's one of the greatest investments I've ever made."

Every October, hundreds of hot air balloons fill the sky above Albuquerque, often called the most photographed event on Earth. It began with 13 balloons in a mall parking lot in 1972, a stunt for a radio station's 50th birthday. A storm kept most of the other pilots on the ground. 20,000 people still came to watch. Today over 500 balloons fill that sky. The parking lot is long gone. The sky is still full.

A cornhusking contest was a race to strip corn by hand, timed to the minute. In 1935, one of those contests drew 110,000 people to a cornfield in Newtown, Indiana. Two aerial bombs marked its start and finish, eighty minutes apart. Elmer Carlson of Iowa husked about 41½ bushels of corn by hand and won. NBC broadcast the whole contest live on national radio. Farmers still compete for the same title every October.

Ryan Seacrest started in radio as a high school intern at an Atlanta station. Since 2010 he and his family have built real radio and TV studios inside children's hospitals, and the kids are the hosts. They run their own shows and interview the stars who visit, while other kids join in from their rooms. Kids in 14 hospitals still go on air.