The new medium grew rapidly though the 1920s, vastly increasing both the size of its audience and its profits. In those early days, it was customary for a corporation to sponsor an entire half-hour radio program, placing its commercials at the beginning and the end. This is in contrast to the pattern which developed late in the 20th century in both television and radio, where small slices of time were sold to many sponsors and no corporation claimed or wanted sponsorship of the entire show, except in rare cases. These later commercials also filled a much larger portion of the total program time than they had in the earlier days.
In the early radio age, content typically included a balance of comedy, drama, news, music and sports reporting. Variety radio programs included the most famous Hollywood talent of the day. During the 1920s, radio focused on musical entertainment, the Grand Ole Opry, has been focused on broadcasting country music since it began in 1925. Radio soap operas began in the U.S. in 1930 with Painted Dreams. Laurdagsbarnetimen, a Norwegian children show, with its premiere in 1924 is still being broadcast weekly, which makes it the longest running radio show in the world.[1]
In the early 1950s, television eroded the popularity of radio comedy, drama and variety shows. By the late 1950s, radio broadcasting took on much the form it has today — strongly focused on music, talk, news and sports, though drama can still be heard, especially on the BBC.
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