The First Public Radio Broadcast
Next: January 13, 2027
Opera, live, through the air.
The story
Where it comes from
This Story marks the anniversary of 13 January 1910, when the inventor Lee de Forest sent a live performance from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York out over the air: a double bill of Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci. It is widely counted as the first public radio broadcast. Until then wireless had mostly carried Morse code, and de Forest wanted to show it could carry sound. He set up microphones in the opera house and a transmitter backstage, with the aerial strung from a long pole on the roof.
How it's celebrated
There is no formal observance, but the anniversary is a good day to switch on the radio, find a live concert or a station from another country, or thank the presenter who keeps you company. The Met itself has broadcast live opera on Saturday afternoons since its first network broadcast, Hansel and Gretel, on Christmas Day 1931.
Did you know
- Listeners heard the 1910 broadcast through earphones at public receivers around New York, including hotels in Times Square and ships in the harbour.
- The sound was so poor that the tests were abandoned after a day; de Forest later admitted 'our ambitions far exceeded our possibilities'.
- The Met's Saturday broadcasts are the longest-running continuous classical music programme in American radio history.
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