Radio Guide: So, Mr. Marconi...
Marconi: Please: call me Googly.
Radio Guide: Googly….when you first transmitted and received an AM signal in 1895, did you have any idea commercial Radio would have become what it is today?
Marconi: Mamma Mia! No! What a freakin’ mess! When I started out with AM, it was pretty basic: me. A voice. "Hello, testing, testing, one, two. Look: I’m holding a banana. Testing." Today? Crap santo! Che cosa un mess. Avete ottenuto le migliaia delle stazioni!
Armstrong: Speak English, will ya?
Marconi: Sorry. I said, “Holy crap! What a mess. You got thousands of stations!"
Armstrong: You can thank me for about 10,000 of them.
Radio Guide: That’s right, Mr. Armstrong. You did invent FM in 1933.
Armstrong: Damn straight. Would have made a fortune, too, if David Sarnoff at RCA hadn’t held me back and I didn’t have to keep going to court because of Dr. Lee DeForest and his egocentric lawsuits. What a poser he was.
Radio Guide: Okay. Uh….Mr. Marco….I mean Googly. In your opinion what’s wrong with Radio today?
Marconi: Look. In my day nobody even knew there was FM until Edwin discovered that. By the time the “Communications Act of 1933” was written, the politicians thought “Radio” was a limited resource and therefore the government should regulate and protect it on behalf of the people.
Armstrong: And that was true for a while. But, when you think about all the technology that has come along since Googly and I did our thing, you begin to realize that the whole nature of Radio broadcasting has been redefined. Today some 14 year-old teenager in Des Moine can broadcast from his bedroom through Live365 and reach a global audience. Don't tell me the paradigm hasn't shifted!
Marconi: Satellite, too! Don't forget that.
Armstrong: Yeah…Satellite Radio. Who would have thought? And now they're putting Internet radio on cell phones.
Marconi: The point is: the government doesn’t have to protect AM and FM anymore because there are new, unlimited broadcasting resources that are as or more powerful than AM and FM ever were. The power of "Radio" is now a renewable resource because we can create unlimited information streams through the Internet or with satellites and send them anywhere without the AM or FM technology.
Radio Guide: So, what’s the answer?
(Continued...)
