Sparks Commentary: A review of Ken Burns’ “Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio” (PBS)

Sometimes these three men were friends … At other times, they were cutthroat business rivals

The filmmaker Ken Burns became famous when “The Civil War” came out in 1990. At the time I write this, “The Civil War” is still the most popular program ever shown on PBS. But few today know about another program that he later made, which came out in 1992. The film that I refer to is, of course, the film “Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio.” Although the subject is a bit obscure, it’s actually much more interesting than one might assume from this fact. It’s a biography of three different men (all very interesting), who helped to create the industry of radio. They were pioneers in the invention of a new information and entertainment medium. Some of them were even friends and colleagues with each other in earlier years, but some of them were cutthroat business rivals and bitter enemies later on. This film is thus a bit like doing twin biographies of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, as Ken Burns does in “The Civil War.” But with one exception, no one died in this market competition between these three businessmen; although that doesn’t make it any less dramatic. (The person who did die, incidentally, was one of these three men – I shall not say which one – when he jumped out of a New York City window to fall 13 stories to his death. This suicide was brought on by his being beaten at the game of business, and thus driven to some amount of poverty and ruin.)

How do you do a visual history of such a non-visual medium?

Not all of these men are sympathetic, as it turns out, and one in particular comes across as something of a jerk. But fortunately, this does not make their stories any less interesting to hear about. One of them (David Sarnoff) was a business executive, who had a knack for seeing opportunities that others may have missed. The other two (Lee DeForest and Edwin Armstrong) were both inventors, who had the technical skill to make the kind of technology that the radio market required. Some have criticized this film for not including the contributions of Nikola Tesla, another inventor whose work would later pave the way for this industry. These criticisms may well be true; but in fairness, Ken Burns is telling a different story here, which is the story of commercial radio in the United States. Moreover, he is telling it quite well to boot. Ken Burns uses photographs and film footage of these three men, helping to better dramatize their stories for television. You might expect that a program about radio wouldn’t have very good visuals, since radio is obviously something of a non-visual medium. But these companies would often film the creation of their programs, allowing a select few to see what they looked like when they were made. This footage was never seen by those who merely listened to these programs, but it may still help the viewer of this documentary to understand how these programs were made at the time. The programs themselves often have beautiful sound quality despite the scratchy audio recordings, so it seems that this truly was “the Golden Age of Radio.” The television medium did not exist yet, of course, so it did not compete with radio for the public's attention at this time.

David Sarnoff, business executive

Comments on this film's coverage of the entertainment culture of “the Golden Age of Radio”

This film is as much about the medium itself as it is about these three men. A significant amount of the film is dedicated to the kind of programs that these companies were then airing, and the entertainment culture that they thus created here. Listeners could tune in to news, music, and even sports (among many other things). These programs transcended the fact that they had no pictures, and may have actually been better in some ways because of this absence of visuals. One of the film’s commentators notes that he prefers radio “because the pictures are better.” Of course, one could say the same thing about books, where the sound and pictures are both left to the viewer’s imagination (where they are often somewhat better). This is obviously an aesthetic issue, but there are advantages and disadvantages to all of these mediums, and each one may offer something that the others do not always have. Of course, the radio industry is still alive and well today, treating people to programs that they can enjoy while they’re driving, at those times when they must focus their eyes on something else (like the road). For my friends who are blind, the radio is often particularly appealing, since their sight-related disabilities become largely irrelevant here. And many other groups are still served by the radio, even if it is not “central” to American society in the way that it was in their time.

Lee DeForest, inventor

Comments on this film's coverage of lawsuits over patent rights between some of these men

But surprisingly, these three businessmen seldom listened to the great radio programs that their work had made possible. They were more focused on their work itself, and on the competition between them for markets and patent rights. I shall not spoil the viewer’s surprise regarding these patent decisions, but suffice it to say that they battled each other for patent rights in the court systems, and that the litigation surrounding these patents could go on for years. These issues were clearly not small ones, since the owners of these patents obviously had a temporary monopoly on the production of their inventions. Indeed, these were the incentives that had caused them to invent these technologies in the first place (an expensive undertaking), and bring them to a public that would soon crave them ravenously. As with all patents in this country, these monopolies were temporary, and would go away after these inventors had been sufficiently rewarded for their hard work, ingenuity, and risk-taking on the public’s behalf. With new inventions, as it turns out, there is always the risk that one’s competitors may beat you to the patent, that the technology may not sell well, or that it may be too expensive to produce once you have it. People don’t often undertake these kinds of risks without some prospect of a reward, particularly when the development of these technologies is so expensive. Thus, if we do indeed need these technologies, we will have to reward their invention with patents (at least temporarily).

Edwin Howard Armstrong, electrical engineer and inventor

The way Ken Burns re-enacts the sound of his films, and how it can be very radio-like at times

This film is based on a book, also called “Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio.” The book was written by Tom Lewis in 1992, and adapted to a radio drama in that same year. Ken Burns may have learned a lot from the radio industry, since his use of still pictures requires him to re-enact the sound part at times, in (arguably) radio-like fashion. For example, the audio of “The Civil War” includes narration, voice acting, music, and sound effects (and so does this one). Ken Burns thus seems to be the master of dramatizing still pictures with good sound effects, and giving you the audio that would likely have been present at the moment that the photograph was taken (or the moment that the drawing depicts, if it is a drawing). When your visuals hold still and don’t move, this audio may thus become particularly important in the telling of the story. As with an animated cartoon, you don’t see the actors’ faces as they recite their lines, since their work is only done as a voiceover. As with radio, their facial and body motions become largely irrelevant, and the emphasis is on how they sound to the listener. With a Ken Burns film, this allows the still picture to take on new life and energy, and better communicate the drama of the subject to the viewer. Ken Burns once said that he likes to listen to a photograph, rather than just look at it. If he sees cars on the street, he sometimes adds the noise of an engine to his film. If he sees a crowd of people, he sometimes adds the noise of a crowd to the film. And if he sees a batter hitting a ball, he sometimes adds the sound of that crackling collision, and deepens the picture’s meaning in the process. Such techniques are used to artful effect in this film, and in every one of his films that I’ve ever watched.